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German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party was defeated in a Berlin
state election and her coalition ally lost all its seats after turning
skepticism over euro-area bailouts into a campaign theme, stoking
government infighting over the debt crisis.

The Social Democrats, the main opposition party
nationally, extended their 10-year rule in the German capital after
beating Merkel's Christian Democrats into second place in yesterday's
election. Merkel's Free Democratic coalition partner, known as the
liberals, crashed out of a regional assembly for the fifth time this
year, while the Pirate Party won its first-ever seats.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/09/18/bloomberg_articlesLRQGB91A74E9.DTL

eh? Merkel had to make that odd coalition with the rightwing wacko, because otherwise she has to share with SPD, But that couldn't happen everything collapses during the bargaining.

So the coalition was center right-extreme right wacko. (Work most of the time, but didn't go too well in the bail out issue)

After this election, if it were federal, CDU increase by 2%, and FPD idiot was kicked out. CDU can make alliance with any of smaller libertarian left or green. And make fairly stable coalition to carry on more pro-europe policy. It'll lean more left. More reflective of German overall vote.

If I have to make a guess, Merkel will have more free hand now. (Heck, it might even work if she created a coalition with the crazy Pirate Party. ... massive youth appeal. Something that the CDU kinda lacking. Pirate party doesn't have strong foreign policy and fairly liberal domestic economy. But certainly has strong opinion about new technology. So what's the problem? Merkel is free to save europe now, as long as he does a thing or two that the pirate party wants. )

...definitely no more  nato invasion/neocon stuff. Including Israel BS and more middle east war.

But the biggest message in Berlin is youth voters is not happy and want something different.

see result.

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,786376,00.html

Chancellor Angela
Merkel voiced confidence on Monday that her government would win a key
vote in parliament on the ailing euro zone despite the drubbing of her
coalition partner in a state election, the latest in a string of
reverses at the ballot box.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-germany-election-idUSTRE78I30E20110919

I think Merkel will survive and gain reelection.

Anti-Piracy Group Asks Court to Gag The Pirate Party

The Hollywood-backed anti-piracy outfit BREIN is going all out to
make The Pirate Bay inaccessible to the Dutch public. After successfully
blocking The Pirate Bay through court, and then censoring proxy sites
that linked to it, they are now demanding that the Pirate Party should
be banned from “discussing” how easily Internet censorship can be
circumvented. The political party is baffled by the proposed gag-order
and has asked the court to lift all censorship efforts.

The
legal battle over Internet censorship is reaching new heights in the
Netherlands, as the local anti-piracy group BREIN is now asking the
court to gag the Pirate Party.

The lawsuit is the next move in BREIN’s attempt to deny Dutch citizens’ access to The Pirate Bay.

In January, a Dutch court ruled
that Ziggo, the largest ISP in the country, and competitor XS4ALL, must
block access to The Pirate Bay. As a result hundreds of individuals
setup proxy websites allowing subscribers to route around the blockade,
effectively rendering the order useless.

In a countering move BREIN obtained an injunction from the court to
shut these proxies down, including one operated by the Pirate Party.
However, the Pirates are determined to put up a fight and have taken
BREIN to court to get the order overthrown.

The case, in which the Pirate Party asked the court to lift all
censorship restrictions, was heard by the court yesterday. BREIN,
however, did exactly the opposite by submitting a rather broad set of new demands essentially asking the court to gag the political party.

In short BREIN’s demands are as follows.

1. The Pirate Party should be banned from operating a reverse proxy for Pirate Bay

2. The Pirate Party should be banned from operating a generic proxy service

3. The Pirate Party should be banned from linking to third-party proxies

4. The Pirate Party should be banned from listing new IP-addresses / domains Pirate Bay registers

5. The Pirate Party should be banned from encouraging people to circumvent the Pirate Bay blockade

If the Pirate Party violates the above terms BREIN asked for a penalty of €10,000 per day, up to a maximum of €250,000.

Needless to say, the demands of the anti-piracy group are
unprecedented for a copyright related case. It is essentially a
gag-order to enforce a previously obtained court verdict. If the court
sides with BREIN this will have rather far-reaching consequences for
people’s freedom of speech. It may also invite other parties to consider
making similar demands.

The question is also how far BREIN wants to take this. Should other
generic proxy sites be banned as well? And what about VPNs or the TOR
network? All of these services allow the public to bypass the
court-ordered blockade.

Meanwhile, the popular Dutch weblog Geenstijl is making some noise as well, as they launched a redirection site (FuckTimKuik.org)
that forwards people to available proxies. BREIN has yet to respond to
this initiative, but it shows that it will be quite difficult to root
out all circumvention methods.

The court’s decision in the case between the Pirate Party and BREIN
is expected to be published in two weeks. This verdict will coincide
with BREIN’s case against two other Dutch Internet providers that are
still allowing access to The Pirate Bay.

Pollsters attribute the great success of the Pirates to voter frustration with the established parties.



"The slick answers of politicians are no longer credible," said Manfred
Güllner of polling group Forsa, adding "the Pirates provide a shell for
this resentment."

.........

For example, the demand for an unconditional basic salary comes from
this principle. So is defining public transport as a platform similar to
the Internet, except that it facilitates the transport of people rather
than data.



Delius said "platform neutrality" complements the Pirates' liberal persepctive on social issues.



"Neutrality is a liberal idea. Everybody should be able to act freely
on one platform," he said. "At the same time, all must be granted access
to this platform. That's the social element."

The Internet is not the only topic on the Pirate Party's agenda, but it
is definitely a major issue for rethinking society. The web provides
political legitimization and defines the political mandate.

"Those who think the Internet is past growing will be proven
wrong," warned Delius. "It’s our job to set the course for more
democracy and more transparent structures because the Internet has a
massive impact on political order and the state."

Delius said Germany's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) are the
only parliamentary party also thinking in terms of the big picture. But
they offer quite different answers.



If the Pirates gain any seats in next year's German parliamentary
elections, it will be interesting to see how coalition talks will pan
out. According to Korte, the Pirate Party and CDU might actually make a
good team since "one could learn from the other."

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15912076,00.html