Sixty years ago to the month Stalin's Russia began blocking all incoming traffic to West Berlin, choking the city's supplies of fuel and food. The act was an attempt to squeeze the Allied powers out of otherwise Soviet-controlled territory, an angry reaction to a German currency reform initiative that included West Berlin. The city, still smoldering from World War II less than three months prior, was thrust into what Der Spiegel calls The War After The War -- The Cold War.

Just two days after the blockade began, on June 26, 1948, the Allies began flying relief missions over West Berlin, dropping supplies by parachute. Over the course of 14 long months, nearly 2.4 million tonnes of food and fuel was flown into a hungry and desperate city. American and British pilots flew 300 aircraft on 277,000 missions over West Berlin. Though the Airlift ended in August 1948, Russia had already stopped the blockade four months earlier. Thanks to the Airlift and the sacrifice of 78 American, British and German lives, West Berlin was kept out of Russian control, changing the course of history in the process.

This month Germany celebrates its 60th year of post-airlift freedom.

With a departing flight from Belfast back to Washington DC this morning George W. Bush ended his weeklong jaunt through Europe, beginning with Slovenia last Monday and ending in Ireland today. Journalists are united in calling it a farewell tour, notes the Atlantic Review.

Bush's visit to Europe, America's most valued ally, was marked by grand pronouncements and popular disinterest, spotty protests described in the hundreds rather than the tens of thousands that have greeted Bush in years past.

In Germany, meeting with Chancellor Merkel at Schloss Meseburg and at the press conference following the meeting, efforts were made to bolster a trans-Atlantic stand against Iran with renewed threats of sanctions regarding nuclear proliferation, lip service was given to quick completion of the long-frozen Doha trade round and, in a bizarre attempt at levity, Bush denied media reports that he dislikes German asparagus.

Meanwhile, distracted by the next White House occupant and the EURO 2008 football championship, Europeans couldn't be bothered. A Berliner friend of your correspondent, chatting over beer about the German team's prospects this year was reminded about the U.S. President's arrival the following day. "Ach ja." he said before returning to Fussball commentary.

As far as winning today's hearts and minds, Obama seems to have the lock on Europe. According to a new Pew survey, 82% of Germans (and 82% of French) believe the Democratic candidate would "do the right thing" regarding U.S. foreign policy -- a dramatic vote of confidence, considering that only 59% of Americans feel the same.

Werner Herzog has cajones. He'll do anything he wants and he don't give a damn what you think. He's like your uncle who shows up falling down drunk at your family reunion -- and still commands respect from your older sister's fancy stock broker boyfriend. He can be in the dodgiest part of Los Angeles doing an interview with the BBC, get shot by random sniper fire and carry on talking like nothing happened. Some would call him a pimp. The getting-shot experience, he told Conan O'Brian last night, he found exhilarating. Whatever does it for ya, buddy. If Germans were into middle names, Herzog's might just be gall.

So, without breaking character, last month at Cannes Herzog announced his next project would be a liberal remake of The Bad Lieutenant -- the cult film in which Harvey Keitel plays a dirty, rotten, well, bad cop -- starring Nicholas Cage. Herzog claims it's not really a remake or even an homage. Apart from sharing the same name, there seems to be little connection with the original. In fact, he claims to know nothing of director Abel Ferrara, telling Defamer he doesn't know the first thing about the man -- and apparently doesn't want to.

But I don't feel like doing an homage to Abel Ferrara because I don't know what he did — I've never seen a film by him. I have no idea who he is. Is he Italian? Is he French? Who is he?

Ferrara's thoughts? "I wish these people die in Hell. I hope they’re all in the same streetcar, and it blows up." Nice. Who needs Klaus Kinski when you've got a jilted has-been director to grapple with?

After 70-some years of displacement, the United States Embassy has returned to its historical location at Pariser Platz 2, a prime piece of real estate nestled immediately next to Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate. Dimplomats are as jubilant -- George Bush Sr. arrives on July 4 for the official opening though operations began last week -- as architects are indignant.

Criticism of the highly-fortified building has been swift and almost uniformly disparaging: Der Tagesspiegel writes, "It is a triumph of banality and a barely disguised castle pretending to be a contemporary building." Says the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "If a building could stand with its arms crossed, it would be this one" while Jacob Heilbrunn at The National Interest notes a "bunker mentality" in the structure, which "resembles something of a fortress that no one would want to try entering."

Prominent Berlin-based Scottish expat, culturist and opinionator Nick Currie, better known as the musician Momus, elects Barack Obama today as the next President of Europe. The position just opened up, Momus says, after French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this month withdrew his essential support of Tony Blair for the job.

Chalk it up to widespread weariness of the same old portly and waspy politics in Europe -- not unlike those that power the US -- but for the hip and wired classes Obama has become a juggernaut of charisma, pioneer of our globalized future and a fund-raising force of nature, as Joshua Green reveals this month in The Atlantic. More than any other candidate, Obama and his campaign leaders realized that the sprawling online networks spawned in northern California -- notably the wealthiest area of the wealthiest state -- remained largely untapped by old guard fund raising strategies. Ignoring this new, and increasingly monied, generation of power and eager financial activism might well prove to be Hilary Clinton's biggest mistake. Eschewing hipness for experience spoke to the old money, leaving the new wired money behind.

As Roger Cohen op-eds in the New York Times, bouncing off Green's article, "Obama has been a classic Internet-start up, a movement spreading with viral intensity and propelled by some of Silicon Valley’s most creative minds. As with any online phenomenon, he has jumped national borders, stirring as much buzz in Berlin as he does back home." And with Obama contemplating a post-nomination visit to Berlin and given Germany's current love affair with the man (not to mention the rest of Europe), he would have a decent shot at the job if he wanted it.

Bosselman points out that print is not dead yet, even though there is a 5% ad spending drop, whereas digital ad spends jumped 15%. Internet is used parallel to other media says Gahlert. Obama has used the web the best from all presidential candidates. His website is more personal and collected more than 30 million dollares.

Now we're talking about another net bubble? In Germany, it took longer to pick up the courage to invest again, and yes and the US was quicker and is two to three years ahead of the Web 2.0 game. Both younger generations don't worry much about publishing private information on the web. Bosselman adds that the security mindset in Germany hinders innovation and stifles the development of new ideas.

Gahlert thinks print and online advertising supplement each other, especially in terms of branding and reach. In the US, dead paper ads are not as effective as in Germany. Gahlert points out that ads outside are becoming less intrusive; I would add less flashy and interruptive, whereas Americans are less resistant to colors. The idea and use of on-demand is more commonly used in US households than in Germany. In the end: Germans need to move quicker and Americans need to do more intelligent and less annoying ads.

Last year an Australian businessman with the bellicose-sounding name Steve Killelea launched a nation-by-nation ranking of peacefullness with the Economist Intelligence Unit called the Global Peace Index. Looking at this year's rankings, handily arranged with 2007 vs. 2008 in compare mode, one sees that the United States (97), still in the lower bracket, has gained seven points while Germany is unmoved at the fairly respectable position 14 and the UK rises two places to 49. Sweden, which usually tops these sorts of lists, actually loses four points. Might it be the weapon-making?

As for what keeps the U.S. in its lowly, albeit slightly improved, position says Killelea to the AP, is it having "the highest proportion of jailed people in the world. And it has high levels of homicide and high potential for terrorist attacks." Lest his list be labelled as agitprop or a tool for the vast global socialist conspiracy, Killelea stresses that the index strives to avoid making moral statements. Peace, of course, is an economic factor as well. Has anyone invested in Somalia recently?

As if the US film industry hasn’t gotten enough. Corey Feldman, best known from “Stand by me,” started shooting in Berlin this past Wednesday for his new flick “Lucky Fritz” with little connection to Germany or Fritz. In case you didn’t know: Fritz is also an alternate name for Devon sausage and a German computer chess game.

Produced by Ica Souvignier, Feldman plays the main character Fritz, a worm breeder who gets struck by lightning and suddenly attracts all kinds of metals and women - it’s a comedy. For Corey, it’s his first shoot in Prussia’s former capital and thinks Beliners “are really friendly,” well if you’re filming in Zehlendorf in the old West or in American speak, city suburbia! Nightlife would be akin to the Puro, a club on the 20th floor near the Ku’damm. Feldman has gone through ups and downs in his career and it looks like his three year-old son Zen is giving him positive energy.

The production comes equipped with German actors, such as Axel Wedekind from “Contergan,” a movie about a health care scandel and brunette-gone-blond Julia Dietze who thinks the script is sweet and funny. It’ll be in the theaters summer 2009.

Johann August Röbling, a German immigrant from Thuringia, a middle-of-nowhere state equipped with a new state anthem by Rainald Grebe, escaped building permit bureaucracy to find his opportunity in New York, suggested to build a bridge that connects Manhatten's East Side with Brooklyn. His idea didn't cause much excitement in the City at first. How will a two kilometer long bridge hold?

Röbling developed the idea of a hanging bridge with steel cables and had been successful as a civil engineer near the Niagara Falls, so eventually the City was convinced to start the project. Up until then, ferries that traversed the East River had to fight the ice pack during the winter months.

After only a few days of steel and brick gathering, a ferry squeezed Röbling's foot. He was never able to see his bridge take shape and died of Tetanus after his accident. As if the boats knew who was changing their business model and delivered a final punch.

What if the aliens are not Christians but of another religious persuasion, say Jewish or Scientologist? wonders Gawker's new science fiction blog. That would be embarrasing.

"Stinginess is sexy!" Yup, that was an ad slogan from the German electronics store Saturn for quite some time. Now it's "We hate expensive" and they might get some company after Best Buy bought a 50% stake in Carphone Warehouse worth € 1.4 billion, the largest cellphone retailer in Europe.

The story in gatekeeper media is more about the joint venture in Britain. With a stingy consumer electronics market worth €122 billion in Europe, the battle for market share will be a tough one. In terms of the strategic position, it is an entry ticket into foreign markets since Carphone owns 2,400 shops in 9 European countries. I can't wait to see MicroSD chips dropping 50% at Best Buy in Berlin and German consumers who reignite the idea of shopping as a sport.

Anglofritzian film production is coming of age. After the American James Bond was shot in Studio Babelsberg, "V for Vendetta" and Cruise's "Valkyrie“, now the newest Wachowski brother flick "Speed Racer" opens in theaters and is another Hollywood production to join the rebirth of Berlin as a global film capital.

The $100 million moving image investment is based on the Japanese comic "Mach Go Go Go" and includes Speed's parents Pops and Mom played by John Goodman and Susan Sarandon. Well known German actors Moritz Bleibtreu and Benno Führmann, who takes on the inspector role, raise the flag for Fritz.

Even if the Wachowski brothers still don't give interviews, their main theme is the individual fight against corrupt regimes. In the era of gasoline powered SUVs and rising oil prices, Racer is a hommage to our leg extensions with an emphasis on authentic family values, a bond that fights inhumane conditions and corruption. And with almost every color represented, you're reminded what the movie going experience is actually good for.

Is obviously Al Gore, according to the creators of www.algore2008.de, a German web site endeavoring to draft Mr. Gore as the next US President, whom they proclaim as Man of the Century. Sure he's repeatedly denied any intentions to run, but that doesn't bother the site's organizers, who according to the DW Election blog Across The Pond is run by a lawyer, a historian, a business economist, a sociologist and a computer scientist who are very enthusiastic about getting Gore in the White House.

Why is this important now? Could it be that the Germans, like the Americans, are fatigued by a slog of a campaign many feel should have ended already? Certainly a third Democrat entering the race at this juncture would spice things up.

Interestingly, a study from Germany predicting a cooler upcoming decade published in Nature last week threatens to tarnish Gore's halo as the environmental Messiah, maybe. Climate scientists at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Germany, using real world data and a new climate model, believe that surface temperatures of the North Atlantic will actually drop slightly over the next ten years. Experts stress, however, that such a change would be cyclical and consistent with the larger warming trend in global temperatures. Prometheus, blogging for the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, sees something amiss with tweaking climate models every few years to better match real world data, "I am sure that some model somewhere has foretold how the next 20 years will evolve (and please ask me in 20 years which one!). And if none get it right, it won't mean that any were actually wrong. If there is no future over the next few decades that models rule out, then anything is possible. And of course, no one needed a model to know that."

Since 2005, the BBC World Service has been conducting a yearly worldwide opinion poll to measure how powerful countries (34) are perceived in the eyes of the world. They added Germany to the roster this time and meine gute! it topped the list with 56% of the 17,000 polled saying they had a favourable view of Germany with 18% holding a negative view. Though it drew a tie with Japan on the positive side, also with 56%, Germany got the top spot as Japan's negatives hit 21%. The win came as a complete surprise, writes Deutsche Welle.

Three out of four Spaniards, Portuguese and French as well as a whopping 82 percent of Italians said they viewed Germany as a "mainly positive" force in world affairs. Germany is also popular among people in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa. Latin Americans tended to be more mildly favorable. Only two countries, Turkey (42 percent) and Egypt (43 percent) had predominantly negative views.

Things are also looking up for today's favoured object of ire, the United States, which saw it's positive feelings rating rise to 35% from 31% last year. Why the upturn? American foreign policy and the possibility of its changing on the prospect of a new leader in the White House in 2009. That's what the survey's directing organisation believes, "It may be that as the US approaches a new presidential election, views of the US are being mitigated by hope that a new administration will move away from the foreign policies that have been so unpopular in the world."

Get complete poll results here in a pdf [4mb, 22p].