Instantanés

Marianne

Saturday evening, my man was invited at a birthday party in a bar in Kreuzberg. I was happy to join because I like the area and wanted to go out for a drink, maybe two, for sure not three, at least not before the fourth. Anyway, we arrived late because we took our time, baked a cake, having thought It will be some kind of family reunion. So around midnight, right after the clock said the friend is now a year older, we arrived in Marianne. And big surprise. One thing my man forgot to tell me before going, is that his friend is lesbian. It is absolutely not a problem to me, except that I’ve never been to a lesbian party before. The bar was full … of girls. That makes things strange when you arrive and you’re not 1) the correct gender and 2) definitely not of the right sexual orientation. Feeling the (almost) only man in the place among women feels strange. It makes you feel not unique but a rare unknown specie who landed here by mistake. Some are curious to watch you evaluating on this new planet, you can see on some faces “but what is he doing here ?” and some after noticing something strange in the environment, forget you at once because the girl next chair at the bar sipping her red wine is definitely more intriguing and surely fuckable, will do for that night. My man noticed some acquaintances so I let him go and ordered a glass of wine and found a table with chair faaaaaar away on the last corner of the bar. But the good thing is that from the place I was, I could have a general (interested) look at the public. I noticed two other guys, so I was not feeling (too) lonely. But some details I noticed straight away are interesting. It is very common that men go out alone, sit at a bar and drink calmly his drink while doing nothing or at most having discussion with an unknown. If he is in a darkroom, he will have sex and go back hone, feeling satisfied (or not, but It is another debate). In a male darkroom (I can’t say gay darkroom, you’ll never know who’s coming there), even if the place is forbidden for women, you will find separated toilets for them (It is the law, I saw It, I confirm). And gay men like do be with girls, even lesbians, the contrary does not seem that obvious. In a lesbian bar, men are not forbidden. They can come in. But girls do not come out alone. I saw no girl alone during the evening. They all know someone in the place and stick together the whole evening, sometimes even creating groups when one meets other friends. This, I never saw. And they leave also together. In the lesbian bar, there is no toilets for men. I let you imagine the reaction of the girls when you need to pee. But the mood was great. Unfortunately, we arrived after the concerts. After a while and a few drinks, I was not alone at my table anymore but 4, when we were requested to be there for the concerts at the end of the month. It was already the middle of the night and because the party was nearly finished, we decided to go at Roses, which is around the corner in Oranienstr. The bar was also full, we started at the bar and finished near the sofa where we could breathe a little. Some of the girls from the party joined us a while after but we could hardly make contacts. What a pleasant first lesbian night.

Instantanés

Size is important

Admit it or not, the size of baby's penis is often a source of parental pride. If the nature spoiled him, his father and mother can predict him future effortlessly: he will have of testosterone to be resold, will have risen well, while remaining one way or another susceptible at the needs of its circle of acquaintances - in brief, a leader - born, generous and honorable. Here is for the ideal scenario. But what happens when baby has a genital deformation? If he is Danish, we compare his family jewels to those of his neighbors of the Baltic. In Denmark, the increase of the genital deformations of male children, the decline of the average rates of sperm cells, and the increase of the rate of cancer of the testicle do not stop alarming the scientists. Since five years, a group of researchers of the country tries to determine the causes - and compare, to do it, the intimate parts of their fellow countrymen to those of the Finns. Why Finland? It is very simple: both countries have medical quality archives and populations opened to the medical research. Furthermore, a wild rivalry sets them for a long time - already at the time of the Vikings, the Danish and Finnish tribes made fun of knocks of bludgeon. But to whom returns today the palm of the most impressive bludgeons? There is the question. Why should this question interest you if you are neither Danish, nor Finn? Simply because the problems which meet these babies could be well caused by environmental toxin - toxin today present all over the world. According to the statistics, the Finns win easily this competition of measurements. A study led on 1.600 babies been born between 1997 and 2001 shows that the measurements of the testicles of the young Danes are lesser than those of the Finns. The scientists began by calculating the "volume ellipsoïde" at birth of the testicle, noticing then a considerable difference. In three months, the difference was even more pronounced, the growth testicle of the Finnish babies being three times superior on average of their young neighbors! When the results were published, the announcement seemed like thunder - to make you an idea, imagine that a very serious study asserts that the students of Yale have a smaller one than those of Harvard... " We spoke about it in the media a lot ". The researchers led another study, concerning the size of the penises of the children, which allowed to demonstrate that the big sizes were associated with high rates of testosterone. " The Finns beat us in all the categories: rate of sperm cells, sizes of testicles, rate of cancer ". You will say that these Scandinavians' thankless could already consider themselves happy to be big and blond ... the size of testicles and the penises (and, obviously, the congenital deformations) can say a lot about the health as much as on the reproductive success of the individuals. And the environmental factors which can explain that these problems already affect several countries of Western Europe and-probably part of North America.

Move your money

Play at Robin Bank

It is one thing or the other: either you complain about banks responsible for the financial crisis and again profitable, whereas your overdraft becomes abyssal. Either you act. Why not sending to your bank an e-mail of financial break and to choose an eco-friendly bank and to save united (because it is the key of a healthier économy). Let us go farther. Rather than to make the revolution át the bar, you can play it like a Robin the Bank. A Catalan, an anticapitalist activist in favour of the decrease, member of the collectives Time of re-voltes and Infoespai. This man, middle of September, announced publicly that it had just swindled 492 000 euro from various financial entities with the aim of denouncing, in these terms, a system which urges to borrow ceaselessly and to mortgage up to his own mother! With this swindled vargent, the " Robin of forks out " financed the publication of a free baptized newspaper "Crisi" made to 200 000 copies and distributed by volunteers in Catalonia. Arrested then released a few months later, he dashes now in a new campaign " a strike of the users of bank "... Here is for the Catalan and radical version. You can also play it the American way with "Move Your Money". Another form of boycott of the Big Banks. The site " move your money " allows the citizens to move their "nuts" in a local and reliable bank - noted well by the Institutional Risk Analytics (IRA). Then move your money in the Nave or in the Credit Coopértif for example. If the movement of capital becomes massive, the big banks are going to have to revise their way of functioning or disappear... Look at the video campaign of "Move Your Money", which is inspired by Kapara's The Life is beautiful.

Television the drug of the nation

How green is your pet?

Meeting all these pets, mostly dogs, in the city and the bio fashion worldwide (I even found some bio lube ! ) I can't help delivering this article. Kate Ravilious is a science journalist based in York, UK, and the guilty owner of a medium-sized dog. She writes for the New Scientist : "Should owning a great dane make you as much of an eco-outcast as an SUV driver? Yes it should, say Robert and Brenda Vale, two architects who specialise in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. In their new book, Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living, they compare the ecological footprints of a menagerie of popular pets with those of various other lifestyle choices - and the critters do not fare well. As well as guzzling resources, cats and dogs devastate wildlife populations, spread disease and add to pollution. It is time to take eco-stock of our pets. To measure the ecological paw, claw and fin-prints of the family pet, the Vales analysed the ingredients of common brands of pet food. They calculated, for example, that a medium-sized dog would consume 90 grams of meat and 156 grams of cereals daily in its recommended 300-gram portion of dried dog food. At its pre-dried weight, that equates to 450 grams of fresh meat and 260 grams of cereal. That means that over the course of a year, Fido wolfs down about 164 kilograms of meat and 95 kilograms of cereals. It takes 43.3 square metres of land to generate 1 kilogram of chicken per year - far more for beef and lamb - and 13.4 square metres to generate a kilogram of cereals. So that gives him a footprint of 0.84 hectares. For a big dog such as a German shepherd, the figure is 1.1 hectares. Meanwhile, an SUV - the Vales used a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser in their comparison - driven a modest 10,000 kilometres a year, uses 55.1 gigajoules, which includes the energy required both to fuel and to build it. One hectare of land can produce approximately 135 gigajoules of energy per year, so the Land Cruiser's eco-footprint is about 0.41 hectares - less than half that of a medium-sized dog. The Vales are not alone in reaching this conclusion. When New Scientist asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, UK, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data, his figures tallied almost exactly. "Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," he says. Then there are all the other animals we own. Doing similar calculations for a variety of pets and their foods, the Vales found that cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares (slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf), hamsters come in at 0.014 hectares apiece (buy two, and you might as well have bought a plasma TV) and canaries half that. Even a goldfish requires 0.00034 hectares (3.4 square metres) of land to sustain it, giving it an ecological fin-print equal to two cellphones. This kind of analysis appeals to David Mackay, a physicist at the University of Cambridge and the UK government's new energy adviser. He believes we should put as much thought into choosing a pet as we do into buying a car. "If a lifestyle choice uses more than 1 per cent of your energy footprint, then it is worthwhile reflecting on that choice and seeing what you can do about it," he says. "Pets definitely deserve attention: by my estimates, the energy footprint of a cat is about 2 per cent of the average British person's energy footprint - and it's bigger for most dogs." Alternatively, consider the cumulative environmental impact of our furry friends. The US, which tops the list for both cat and dog ownership in absolute terms, is home to over 76 million felines and 61 million canines. Taking the estimated cat population for the top 10 cat-owning countries, the Vales calculate that the land required just to feed these cats is over 400,000 square kilometres. That's equivalent to one-and-a-half times the area of New Zealand. A further five New Zealands are required to feed the pooches living in the top 10 dog-owning countries - which, perhaps surprisingly, does not include the UK. Then there are the other environmental impacts of pets. Every year, for example, the UK's 7.7 million cats kill over 188 million wild animals (Mammal Review, vol 33, p 174). That works out at about 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat. Similar figures have emerged from surveys in the US and Australia. There is also a knock-on effect because cats feasting on wildlife can leave wild predators such as hawks and weasels short of food. Every year the UK's 7.7 million cats kill over 188 million wild animals. That's 25 per cat. Dogs are not entirely blameless either. In 2007, Peter Banks and Jessica Bryant from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, monitored bird life in woodlands just outside the city to assess the impact of dogs being walked there (Biology Letters, vol 3, p 611). They showed that bird life in areas frequented by dogs, even when kept on a lead, had 35 per cent less diversity and 41 per cent fewer birds overall. Areas with off-lead dogs seem to suffer even more: ongoing studies in the UK indicate that dogs are aiding the decline of some rare species of bird, such as European nightjars. Another major environmental problem, particularly in urban areas, is pet faeces. A study carried out in Nashville, Tennessee, indicated that it is a significant cause of high bacterial levels in local rivers and streams, particularly after heavy rain. As well as making the water unsafe to drink, high bacterial levels can starve waterways of oxygen and kill aquatic life. Cat excrement is particularly toxic. In 2002, it emerged that sea otters along the Californian coast are dying from a brain disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii. The parasite, which is found in cat faeces, ends up in rivers and estuaries thanks to cat owners who flush their cat litter down the toilet or allow their cats to defecate outside. Dolphins and whales are also affected. So what is an eco-friendly animal lover to do? If you already have a pet, then changing its diet can help. Meat is the key, since its production is so energy-intensive. You can almost halve the eco-pawprint of your dog simply by feeding it many of the same sort of savory foods that you eat, which are likely to be far less protein-rich than most dog foods. As well as quantity, think about quality. "If pussy is scoffing 'Fancy Feast' - or some other food made from choice cuts of meat - then the relative impact is likely to be high," says Robert Vale. "If, on the other hand, the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower." Dog owners might also want to avoid walking their dog in wildlife-rich areas, and cat owners could consider keeping Tiddles indoors. "Cats are nocturnal, so the single most important thing people can do to reduce predation is to keep cats in at night," says Michael Woods of the Mammal Society in Southampton, UK. And if you are thinking of acquiring a pet? "Shared pets are the best - the theatre cat or the temple dogs," says Robert Vale. But if you must own your own, think about getting an animal that serves a dual purpose. He recommends hens, which partly compensate for their eco-footprint by providing eggs. Or there is an even better alternative, if you can stomach it. "Rabbits are good," he says, "provided you eat them."

Instantanés

All about love

I give you an article of the Washington Post. I am afraid this is all about money when I thought It was about love and acceptance but true, there is a market to take with gay marriage ! "Georgetown residents Christopher Cahill and Richard Marshall consider the $75,000 wedding that they're planning for June to be their own "personal stimulus package" for the District economy. And local businesses are already seeing the dollar signs.They originally intended to have their wedding in Provincetown, Mass., in a state where same-sex marriages have been legal for nearly six years. But as District recognition crept closer to reality, they brought the party back home: They have contracted with nine local businesses to handle flowers and photography and party favors. About 130 guests are expected for their six-course dinner and reception at the downtown W Hotel. And Cahill said he expects their budget will only get bigger. As the first same-sex couples married in Washington on Tuesday, the city is in the national spotlight as a pioneer in the gay-rights movement. But local officials say the historic event also has more practical implications for a city grappling with 12 percent unemployment: jobs. A study by the nonprofit Williams Institute predicted that legalizing same-sex marriage will create 700 jobs and contribute $52.2 million over three years to the local economy. "We think it's a great opportunity to capitalize on groups that will be coming to Washington," said Elliott Ferguson, chief executive of Destination D.C., the city's tourism and marketing arm. "It's the nation's capital. It's symbolic." Businesses are already lining up to cater to what Forbes estimated is a $16.8 billion national market. A local restaurant answered the phone Tuesday with "Happy gay marriage day." Organizers of the city's first gay and lesbian wedding expo, planned for spring at the Renaissance Hotel in Dupont Circle, said hotels were jockeying to host the expo -- a dramatic change from the days when hotels were reluctant to put signs with same-sex couples' names in the lobby. The Ritz-Carlton in Georgetown has sent out invitations for a celebratory cocktail party and is expecting 200 attendees along with tax attorneys, travel agents and other vendors who will mingle with the crowd. Other businesses are offering discounts as high as 50 percent to win over same-sex couples.Mervis Diamond Importers launched a line of wedding rings targeted to gay couples just in time for the first "I dos." The 18-karat gold rings -- thick bands without diamonds and made to match -- run $1,000 to $3,000. "We're in the business of love," said Jonathan Mervis, the company's digital strategist. "This is just an extension of what we've always been about." Courting the gay community can be a delicate dance. Although many of the staples are the same -- invitation, cake, flowers -- there are subtle differences. Many of the couples are older than traditional newlyweds and have been together for years. Web sites have sprung up selling groom-groom and bride-bride cake toppers. Cahill said many vendors' standard forms ask for the names of the bride and groom. "It's not like a prejudicial thing," he said. "It's the nature of it all." At the same time, the issue of same-sex marriage remains highly politically charged -- the influential Catholic Archdiocese of Washington remains staunchly opposed to the law -- and businesses could risk alienating some customers. Hyatt Regency spokeswoman Tammy Hagin said one guest canceled a room reservation after seeing the hotel's promotion for discounts on gay weddings on its Web site. The ad has since been moved off the front page. But the potentially lucrative market for gay weddings is tough to resist. The average heterosexual wedding cost $19,000 in 2009, according to the Wedding Report, a market research firm, though the average in the District was closer to $40,000. Marianne Puechl, co-founder of the Rainbow Wedding Network, said she generally estimates that gay marriages cost half of traditional ones because they tend to be smaller.The Williams Institute study, issued last spring, predicted that nearly 2,000 District couples would marry if the option were available, generating about $18 million in new spending and $1 million in sales tax revenue over three years. The bigger windfall is expected to come from out-of-state couples -- particularly from New York -- seeking to get married in the nation's capital. The report estimated 12,500 such couples would travel to the District in three years, boosting the economy by $34.3 million and contributing $3.8 million in taxes. A 2004 Congressional Budget Office report estimated that legalizing same-sex marriage across the country would generate about $1 billion annually in new federal revenue through taxes and other fees. Local companies are clamoring to claim what they hope will become a new revenue stream. At MallowDrama bakery in Reston, owner Mary Supley Foxworth and her husband, David, are busy designing as many as 400 miniature wedding cakes for a same-sex group wedding March 20. The event is scheduled at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in downtown Washington, and organizer Mike Wilkinson said it could break a world record. Supley Foxworth began advertising the bakery on Arlington County-based GayWeddings.com last summer and then began working on the group wedding. She and her husband are hoping to personalize each couple's mini cake, perhaps with their names or initials. Although she's providing the cakes for free, Supley Foxworth said she hoped it would be good advertising. "We just wanted to make sure that any couples in our area knew about us," she said. At the Ritz Carlton in Georgetown, the cocktail party next week ostensibly celebrates gay marriage in the District -- and showcases the exposed brick walls and vast windows of its chic Fahrenheit dining room. To reach its target audience, the hotel partnered with well-known figures in Washington's gay community to host the event and, hopefully, invite their friends. "It's hard to pull out the divining rod and know exactly how it will go," said interior designer Skip Sroka, one of the hosts. "But as people look back, they'll recognize how strong the wave was that came through."

Logorama: Part 2 Short film Animated that won the Oscar 2010

Logorama:Part 1 Short film Animated that won the Oscar 2010

Logorama

But of course, France won an Oscar! The Americans avoided " A Prophet ", but they greeted "Logorama", a hallucinating animated short film, diverting hundreds of logos. Its hero: Michelin's Bibendum, engaged in a pursuit race with Ronald McDonald. This Oscar should put on ease the directors, who had violated the rights of the brands with full knowledge of the facts. The Oscar of the best animated short film consecrates definitively "Logorama". Since the Cannes film festival 2009, the movie of François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain chain up the awards. Logorama, it is thus 17 minutes of pursuit race and shooting, in a decorationset underlining the presence of the commercial logos in our landscape. Problem: before using these logos, the directors and the producers had not asked for the authorization of the brands. Would they have obtained these authorizations? Probably not, or not of all the brands. The role of the bad guy is for McDonald, and Haribo is not as nice as the children can think of him. "Logorama" was " a gamble ", explained the producer Nicolas Schmerkin to the site Scenaristes.biz in February: "If the movie makes a success and if it has a good career, the brands will follow. It is clear that we knew the risks from the beginning : 3 000 trials! But we also had arguments for our defense with the right for the caricature, which exists in France. Our lawyer possessed a whole file of cases concerning the diversion / caricature / right in the parody. But everything went well! The brands understodd that it was not bad for them. " Michelin did not intervene with the directors, explains a spokeswoman, because " it was creativity. " And maybe also because its logo has the good part. It is not the case of MCDONALD. Contacted also by Eco89, the group has not answered yet. Ronald McDonald plays effectively " the psychopath ", admitted the directors of "Logorama" in le Monde.fr during the Cannes film festival. But only because of his film qualities, " because the clowns frighten, it is liek the Joker in Batman ". Logorama would not be an anticapitalist piece, just an action movie with stars of another kind. One of the three directors, Hervé de Crécy, explained to le Monde.fr: "It is not a pamphlet, but a right of reply to everything we are daily subjected. We are allowed to caricature the president, the pope, Mahomet. On the other hand, there is nothing more protected than a brand.

55 love and sex

Men have twice more chances than the women to be sexually active at advanced ages, but, whatever is the gender, to be healthy is determining for the sexual good behaviour once at these ages. Basing itself on two inquiries with the American population, the study shows that the ditch, which racks itself with the age, is sharply deeper among 75-85 years. About four men on ten in this age say themselves sexually active against less than two women on ten (17 %). To be married or to have an intimate partner reduces however these differences. A survey (1995-1996 ) was made on about 3.000 persons from 25 to 74 years old and the other one (2005-2006) on an equivalent number of people from 57 to 85 years old. The vast majority (95 in 97,8 %) define themselves as heterosexual. At 55 years old, men have still have an average sexual life of about 15 years against ten and a half years for the women. Among the 75-85 years old, 41,2 % of the men say themselves interested in the sex against 11,4 % of the women. At this age, among those declaring a sexual life, 70,8 % of the men consider it satisfactory against hardly more than a woman on two (50,9 %). The survey confirms that these differences are partially explicable by the conjugal status (be married or have a partner or not). Almost three quarters of the men, in all the age groups, indicate having a partner. While this proportion falls at less than four on ten (38,5 %) to the women of 75 and more years old. The healthy persons have practically twice more chances to be interested in the sex compared with those in poor health. However, if the sexual active life expectation is bigger on the men's side, these last ones lose more years of active sex than the women, because of a poor health, according to the study. The sexual activity corresponded to at least a sexual intercourse within the six months for the first survey and one in the previous 12 months in the 2nd survey.

Militate on sexual networks

Using on-line gay sites to fight against criminalization of the homosexuality worldwide, that is an idea. The journalist and the photographer Philippe Castetbon is a pioneer in this domain. At first : just a connection without militant motive. Castetbon discovers ´quickly that he can be in touch with gays of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Comoros, the Lebanon, Kenya, Jamaica, Uganda, Ethiopia, Gaza of Pakistan. Countries, approximately 80, where homosexuality is reprehensible and condemned. Punished by prison for 10 years, corporal punishments, death penalties also (in Iran for example). On gay web sites, men display their face hidden in order not to be recognized. Sometimes in postures which let, at least a bit, guess their sensuality. Thanks to all these meeting websites, Philippe Castetbon was able to collect testimonies of those who are reduced to silence. For example a Malaysian gay man : there is a lot of ignorance in Malaysia about gays, and about what they are. Quite a lot of people still associate homosexuality with words like "dirty " or " immoral". Moreover, every person who flirts with someone of the same sex risks until 20 years of prison, and will receive boosts. You too you can militate on gay web sites, inspired by the work of Philippe Castetbon presented in a book published by H&O " The condemned : in my country, my sexuality is a crime " and try to discuss with those we talk a lot but we never hear of.

Instantanés

Holy gay sex

After the scandal about children that started 6 weeks ago in Germany within the catholic church, here is the one from Italy, more specific in the Vatican (not surprising, hum ?). A homosexual network surrounds pope Benoît XVI, and it is the nth sexual scandal which takes place Vatican. The Italian press tells that a chorus-singer has just been dismissed by the church because he supplied male sexual partners to a member of the circle close to the pope. Angelo Balducci, honored with the title of " Gentleman of His Holiness ", is the man to whom the partners were supplied - he was imprisoned in mid-February for a business of corruption (!!). Among the recordings of his´conversations which the police has, fragments were discovered which show that Balducci engaged services of touts to have gay sex. Among his touts, a Nigerian chorus-singer was identified: Thomas Chinedu Ehiem. The Italian newspapers retranscribe a part of the conversations. Corriere (a tout, addressing Balducci): " Angelo... I do not say more to you about it. He is two meters high, weighs 97 kg, he is 33 years old, very active. " On other recordings, we can hear : " I have a German who has just arrived from Germany. " " I have one of two meters. " " I have the football player. " " I have one from Abruzzi Mountains. " But there are also young monks: " but he, at what time must he return to the seminary ? ", asks Balducci. Some people would like not to believe it, as Pablo Colino, choirmaster highly skilled in the basilica Saint-Peter, who managed the choir of Chinedu Ehiem. " he is a great tenor, he sings like an angel, he is an angel. You know what he said to me once ? That his place is in paradise, at his death, he wants to go there... " But Chinedu Ehiem admitted. He gave to the weekly Panorama his version of the facts. " It is a friend who was escort who presented him to me, more than 10 years ago. " The chorus-singer was then a waiter, he was younger, poorer, had to help two sisters and four brothers... He eventually gave up to the advances of Balducci, and started to supply him. He claims that he did not always make it willingly, and that all were major and willing. " For Balducci, a 26, 27-year-old man was already too young. He preferred the mature men, from 40. " Time to resign if you’re catholic. How can you have faith with men who pronounced their vows ? Or make church accept that man is only flesh and bones. That would maybe help the ones who live with aids and were condemned by the same church who never help them.

Instantanés

Why Xynthia has such a name

Last week-end in France there was a terrible storm, named Xynthia, that destroyed part of the west coast and cost live to 50 persons. We saw that in Berlin for 2 days when suddenly, after a few days of snow melting, we lived a time wind and snow for hours. I noticed that each storm has a name and the question is now : Why storms are called Günter, Klaus or Lothar... ? Before, to make a long story short, a storm was called according to day saint, locality which it had demolished or the humor of the meteorologists. Since the fifties, storms and cyclones are named according to preestablished lists of first names (but also names of flowers, trees, birds), established by country committees which composition varies according to the concerned region, and validated by the world meteorological Organization of United Nations. National cyclone center of Miami has so six lists of first names. When lists are finished, we take the same and we start from all over again. Except for the particularly murderous storms: their names are then eliminated of the list, in order to not meet a second Katrina or a Mitch junior.. For the North of the Atlantic - and thus storms, but also important anticyclones which get Europe - it is the Institute of meteorology in Berlin that takes care of it since 1954. So a tendency for the Germanic consonances: Klaus (in January, 2009), Lothar (in December, 1999)... Lists follow the alphabet, by alternating first names male / female, parity obliges: before Xynthia there was harmless Günter, Isidor or Wera. Later will come Yve and Zana. In 2004, the students of the institute have the idea to suggest to the public to adopt a storm by baptizing it. Or how to make sensitive the opinion about meteorology while financing the programs of research and meteo observations. Because to baptize a storm of the North Atlantic has a price: 199 euro for a depression, 299 euro for an anticyclone, which are also named. And so we owe the choice of Xynthia to Wolfgang Schütte. The happy (or unfortunate) godfather gained the right to baptize his storm without paying out anything via a lottery organized by a web site dedicated to the climate. The first names have to answer certain criteria: to be registered on the register of the "acceptable" first names, no hyphen, no special signs... Which does not prevent any curiosities and a singular preference for the first names, let's say, old fashioned, at least for a French ear. If a letter is not attributed, it is auctioning on e-bay. For those who would like to let something to climatic posterity, remain to name some storms beginning by Q, W, X and Z. Knowing that, as It is good to know reading the site of the Institute, " you will have no influence on the climate ".