Paperless Democracy?

The FDP-Abgeordnete Jimmy Schulz may have broken the rules of the Bundestag by using an iPad instead of paper notes to when he made a speech last week. Apparently there is a rule to stop members using computers in parliamentary sessions. Doesn't make a lot of sense nowadays and if something like an iPad can give access to lots of other data it has to be preferable to lugging around heaps of paper files. I picked up the report on an Austrian site derStandard.at and you can read it for yourself http://derstandard.at/1276413681388/Deutschland-Streit-um-iPad-gestuetzte-Rede-im-Bundestag Some comments have been added and you might like to add a sentence or two with your opinion.

In case you are wondering why I'm not posting to this blog quite so often, it's because I'm still spending most spare moments decorating the house we are moving to in mid-July. And the garden is still a mess ... but I have made a start! While I was on derStandard.at I had a look at their garden page http://derstandard.at/r2215/Garten but they had nothing to help me with the basic tasks that need tackled now.

Decorating

I spent yesterday at our 'new' house decorating and completely exhausted myself. It was good to be back in the office today. Updating website pages was a lot less tiring. Some time we'll have to tackle the garden which appears to have been neglected by the tenant we had over winter.

For a collection of links on Haus und Garten go to http://www.internetbibliothek.de/dib1/ There is a bit of a bias towards building but a reasonable amount of less demanding DIY and interior decorating. Following through a link for the magazine "House and More" - yes, the site is in German - led me to 25 Sparideen - interesting and also downloadable as a PDF file if you wish.