Germany preparing for worst; Audis could be commandeered!

[Brett Dikeman]

I can't believe the German government is actually saying this stuff
without bursting out laughing(as most everybody except the German
government knows, they're practically opposite where Mir
will break up) but they're warning residents to "prepare a spot in their
basement", and have made contingency plans/scenarios estimating between 60
and as many as 1000 deaths.

The BBC has a picture of a green A4 and a funny bit about Audis:

"If the situation requires it, the law even permits regional home affairs 
ministers to proclaim a state of emergency.  People could be removed from
their homes, police could cordon off whole areas and to cries of "Nein
mein Audi", even cars could be commandeered by the authorities."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1231000/1231282.stm

<sigh>...I've seen news storys titled "Mir today, gone tomorrow"; making
fun of the Taco Bell publicity stunt, one of the managers put a huge
bullseye outside his office:
"FREE BEER,
IF MIR HITS HERE"

Unlike Taco Bell, he probably didn't take out an insurance policy for
$270-million or so :-)

Kind of amusing...when SkyLab went down in '79, "the only casualty then
was apparently an Australian cow."

Somehow, I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of that Yahoo commercial
now.

Brett
(who suspects the whole thing is a secret plot to get rid of lots of beef
infected with various things :-)