Happy birthday Cassia!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Cass-ee-a cuddled Kaysha Cassia,
Happy birthday to you!

Eee Tanja baby!

When Schlüters came by this morning, I asked them whether Tanja's baby had arrived yet (since today is her due date), and they said yes.

Jana Magdalena [after her great-great-grandmother] Vollbrecht was born on Wednesday 2 June around 4:30 in the morning after 16 hours of labour. Tanja had developed gestosis (? Schwangerschaftsvergiftung), so the doctors gave her something to increase contractions.

Jana was a very small baby at 50 cm and 2600 g (19¾ in and 5 lb 12 oz); anything below 2500 g (5 lb 8 oz) is generally considered low birth weight here and gets the child sent to neonatal care (NICU?).

Tanja and Jana expect to come to fast and testimony meeting today where the child will be blessed.

Germany: Government wants to strengthen the rights of homosexual couples

Since this is a topic that interests quite a few people on my friends list strongly, I thought I'd post a translation of an article I read today.

Government wants to strengthen the rights of homosexual couples

Zypries: equal treatment planned in alimony and property laws

The German federal government wants to strengthen the rights of homosexual partners. Same-sex couples should be treated identically to married couples in alimony and property law, announced federal justice minister Brigitte Zypries (SPD) in the newspaper Berliner Zeitung. A bill to that effect will be brought before the Bundestag before summer break; the Bundesrat does not have to approve this bill.

"Lesbian and gay pairs are a social reality in Germany," said Zypries. "For this reason we will also give them the same rights as married couples as long as this does not conflict wit the special protection which is afforded marriage ard family in the constitution.

Legalisation of engagement planned

The SPD politician drew attention to the fact that gays and lesbians are still disadvantaged socially and legally in Germany. "We want to continue to decrease these legal discrimirations with the new draft of the Life Partnership Law." According to the minister, the red-green coalition is united in wanting to permit lesbian and gay couples to be engaged.

They can then refuse to testify in legal proceedings against their partners. In addition, they can claim civil damages on separation. Marital property laws will then also be applied to same-sex couples, said Zypries.

Such couples will then also count as a so-called "Zugewinngemeinschaft" [a union in which property acquired after the union is recognised is counted as belonging to both partners; LEO gives "community of acquisitions" and the even more sesquipedalian "joint ownership of the increase in capital value of assets"]. "Just as with failed marriages, lesbians and gays would have to support their ex-partner after separation," the minister emphasised. If one of the couple dies, the survivor will be eligible to claim the dead partner's pension benefits.

Ogg Vorbis on Windows Media Player: Ask LiveJournal!

I compressed some CDs for Stella into Ogg Vorbis format.

Today she asked me how to play them, and I said that while Windows Media Player is the default media player for Windows, it doesn't support Ogg Vorbis natively, and that I use XMPlay instead.

However, it seems that XMPlay stores the last playlist used globally—so if she plays a directory for one CD, it'll wreck the playlist I use, which is currently not stored since I rely on XMPlay's keeping the last-used playlist around.

So I had a Google search for "windows media player ogg"—and was amused to find the appropriate FAQ on LiveJournal on the second page of search results :)

(Unfortunately, the link to the DirectShow filter didn't work for me since my computer can't connect to www.vorbis.com just now.)

German question

Jetzt bin ich verunsichert.

Eben habe ich micht unterhalten über den Anteil an Fahrgästen im Hamburger Verkehrsverbund, die eine Zeitkarte haben, und habe gesagt, "Das kann man ja daran sehen, wieviele Personen in den Bus einsteigen und wieviele von denen eine Fahrkarte beim Fahrer kaufen; das sind vielleicht von zehn Leuten einer".

Oder "eine", "ein"? Gibt es "einen Leut"? Welchen Geschlechtes ist die Einzahl von "Leute"?

Vielleicht hätte ich sagen sollen "von zehn Menschen einer" oder "von zehn Personen eine"… kann man das überhaupt mit "zehn Leuten" sagen?