Out of this world campaign

"Today, we are all Americans" - this September-10-2001-sentence is once again true on this November-04-2008. The American election has been the number one news topic for quite a while, real and fake experts constantly present their views and there are public and private debates all over the place. You probably know what I mean. It's your country, after all.

The election hype is quite unbelievable - and we can't even VOTE! Well, actually we can vote. Just not in this election. We have this fancy democracy thing going on over here, too. Every once in a while there are European elections, for example. Only problem is nobody cares about them. The turnout has been steadily declining and is especially low in the new EU member states.

In an attempt to change that in the next election in June 2009 some geniuses in Brussels Germany came up with a mind-blowing idea. The European Union aimes for nothing less than the stars: A ballot box will be send into outer space to make voters interested in the process and create election excitement from Britain to the Balkans. In May, a Belgium astronaut is set to take the thing on his trip to the ISS. The box will show us Europeans that we can vote everywhere (no, still not in the US today). I supposse the Eurocrats learned from our American friends that every vote can count. Long lines in front of extrateresstial polling places have long been a major problem and many potential voters were err... alienated by that.

It's all part of a 33 Million dollar PR campaign to enhance the European Union's image amongst its citizens. Cause, you know, it's doing all sorts of tangible, effective and generally great stuff with our tax Euros. Next June, we will all be Europeans. Even those Martians out there.