For an American, staus are defined as a lack of movement on the autobahn, or marginal movement.
For nine months out of the year.....staus occur and are of an acceptable level. Either because of accidents, ice, snow, or construction...Germans will get into a normal stau and just accept the fact that a 90-minute ride turned into 140-minute ride or worse.
The summer period is different.....these staus are monumental and epic in some ways. There are Germans who will boast they were in such-and-such stau in 1981 that twisted a four-hour trip into twelve hours.
What triggers the massive summer staus? There's a certain period when summer vacation periods start up with kids....which relates to vacation movement by car....by millions of Germans. Add in the fact that there are least two significant autobahn construction projects always underway and limiting traffic flow greatly. Then toss in rain or thunderstorms.....to create accidents, which limit movement.
The typical German response is to quickly find an alternate route.....usually on a two-lane road and hope to get around the "mess". If you do this early on in the stau.....it usually works. If this is hour two of the stau....the secondary roads are clogged and just as bad as the problem you originally encountered.
So, my general advice.
If you travel in the summer months....consider leaving early in the morning (6AM), and getting off the autobahn by 10AM. Most of the massive staus occur in the middle of the day. Or get onto your trip after 4PM.
If you get some hint of a stau ahead of you by 10 KM....consider just getting off the autobahn....finding a restaurant, and taking a good long two-hour lunch.
Taking an alternate route? Once you asses the one single best alternate route.....I'd quickly look near it for a second and longer alternate route that is a bit out of the way (maybe adding two hours onto a trip anyway).....just to be moving and avoiding the sit-and-pause situation of the autobahn or your first alternate route.
Days of the week better? Sundays are typically better because there's the German law forbidding truck traffic from sun-up to sun-down. Friday afternoon is usually considered the worst time of the week for possible staus....from 2PM onto 8PM. This is when Germans usually pack the bag and make a run to their vacation destination. All day Saturday....is considered the second worst period in the summer to travel.
Possible for the entire autobahn to be shut down for hours? Yes. There are epic stories about these type situations.....where no one moved for four to twelve hours. It's rare, I admit. This is the reason why you want to have an adequate water supply in the car as you start some big trip in the summer. Think beyond just one small bottle of water per person.....I'd throw a six-pack of the liter-size water containers into the car for good measure.
My own worst story? Years ago, I was talked into a Denmark vacation....to drive from Kaiserslautern up to a Danish village about an hour across the border....on a Saturday in July. I started this trip around 6AM, and if you figure the computed drive on a perfect day, with an hour for lunch and four short pauses in the trip for toilets or gas.....I should have made the whole trip in an eleven hour trip. Well....toss in the four various staus that I ran across from Frankfurt to Hamburg, and it turned into a fourteen-hour trip.
Patience? It is the key to getting through a stau, and it helps to get off the road and mentally rest for a while. If nothing is moving....don't allow the mess to screw up your patience and you start to get aggressive. Don't turn the bad stuff into something much worst.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Grasping the Yukos Episode
Once upon a time....some fine Russian gentlemen sat down....devised a method of moving oil and natural gas at a very profitable rate....selling it to Europeans.....turning the company into a stock-owned asset....and convinced a lot of folks to buy into the whole....thus getting fairly rich.
Somewhere in this sorrowful and wicked story.....there's some disagreement by the CEO and some President of a country. The President thinks the CEO is getting too deep into politics, and decides "enough is enough". Cops are called...prosecution lawyers are drafted into the scheme....and the CEO of Yukos is caught, and dragged into court. Avoidance of taxes is the charge....guilty situation....then the country's leadership walks in and seizes a publicly owned company. The assets are resold, and they just walk away from the stockholders....thinking this is a done deal and nothing will ever come back on this.
Well....yesterday....the fat lady sung....as we say in America.
The court decided that the stockowners of Yukos are owed something....less than the hundred billion they felt....but at least fifty billion dollars. Yeah, BILLION is the right word.
It's a shocker.
A bunch of Russian reactions....most acting like it's not ever going to happen, and this is a pretty bogus court.
Well....I'm not a Russian expert or a journalist.....but I can kinda guess the script to this episode. It took ten years to get to this point and the stockholders are probably sitting there with a smile. They never felt it'd be concluded....but now?
So, here's the anticipated script left for this. Every month of delay....more cost is added (they've actually put an incentive into this....if you delay it....time equals more fines).
Some Russian lawyers will likely show up in thirty days....talk for an hour over this and simply walk out of the court. I wouldn't expect any Russian action for a minimum of six months. But the court said that there's only a window of six months to work out some further negotiation and at that point.....the stockholders can ask for legal documents.
The legal documents? Basically, you take that and walk into any country....present it as your legal standing and ask to take over Russian public property (oil pipelines, ships, aircraft, etc). No, you can't grab their embassy or embassy cars. But you could walk into some German court and start to demand various natural gas pipelines. By owning them....you force someone to come into the room and talk. It only takes one pipeline episode....to flip the Moscow lawyers for Putin into a negotiation phase.
You see....there's one other odd event going on. Russia wants to open up a Wall Street-like market, and trigger some requirements for Russian wealth to stay in Russia....falling into this Wall Street market system. Long term....it makes sense economically. But you sit there and think there's this problem a year or five years down the line where the Moscow government might be forced to cough up $50 billion....where does the fifty billion come from?
Basically.....you have to invent a tax on Russian wealth. You got five billion in your pocket.....you might be expected to cough up $500 million this year.....to secure your part of the invented tax element. Your buddy across the street? Same way.
Fifty billion is a lot.
So, this is likely making the billionaires in Russia nervous. They probably didn't agree with the Yukos episode but just kept quiet. Now? Who got all the wealth out of the Yukos deal when they sold it off? Well....no one in the financial world will say.
Could it take another ten years to reach maximum crisis? Yes. The Russians might be stupid enough to draw this out to 2024. But the fifty billion will have easily turned into two-hundred-and-fifty-billion after ten years. I suspect the court believes it might happen. For the Yukos investment crowd.....half will be dead by that point.....but the survivors will get way more than they ever expected.
I'm guessing Putin and his staff are simply saying they won't pay it. But after they've watched an asset or two seized....especially natural gas or oil related....it'll turn into a bigger mess.
All of this leads back 2003, and you have to wonder if the Putin team understood what they were doing and grasped the long-term implications. Fifty billion is a fair sum and to find yourself inventing taxes to cover a random act of stupidity from a decade ago.....well....it's a tough episode. Especially after the aircraft shoot-down in Ukraine, and the whole civil war business in the Ukraine.
Somewhere in this sorrowful and wicked story.....there's some disagreement by the CEO and some President of a country. The President thinks the CEO is getting too deep into politics, and decides "enough is enough". Cops are called...prosecution lawyers are drafted into the scheme....and the CEO of Yukos is caught, and dragged into court. Avoidance of taxes is the charge....guilty situation....then the country's leadership walks in and seizes a publicly owned company. The assets are resold, and they just walk away from the stockholders....thinking this is a done deal and nothing will ever come back on this.
Well....yesterday....the fat lady sung....as we say in America.
The court decided that the stockowners of Yukos are owed something....less than the hundred billion they felt....but at least fifty billion dollars. Yeah, BILLION is the right word.
It's a shocker.
A bunch of Russian reactions....most acting like it's not ever going to happen, and this is a pretty bogus court.
Well....I'm not a Russian expert or a journalist.....but I can kinda guess the script to this episode. It took ten years to get to this point and the stockholders are probably sitting there with a smile. They never felt it'd be concluded....but now?
So, here's the anticipated script left for this. Every month of delay....more cost is added (they've actually put an incentive into this....if you delay it....time equals more fines).
Some Russian lawyers will likely show up in thirty days....talk for an hour over this and simply walk out of the court. I wouldn't expect any Russian action for a minimum of six months. But the court said that there's only a window of six months to work out some further negotiation and at that point.....the stockholders can ask for legal documents.
The legal documents? Basically, you take that and walk into any country....present it as your legal standing and ask to take over Russian public property (oil pipelines, ships, aircraft, etc). No, you can't grab their embassy or embassy cars. But you could walk into some German court and start to demand various natural gas pipelines. By owning them....you force someone to come into the room and talk. It only takes one pipeline episode....to flip the Moscow lawyers for Putin into a negotiation phase.
You see....there's one other odd event going on. Russia wants to open up a Wall Street-like market, and trigger some requirements for Russian wealth to stay in Russia....falling into this Wall Street market system. Long term....it makes sense economically. But you sit there and think there's this problem a year or five years down the line where the Moscow government might be forced to cough up $50 billion....where does the fifty billion come from?
Basically.....you have to invent a tax on Russian wealth. You got five billion in your pocket.....you might be expected to cough up $500 million this year.....to secure your part of the invented tax element. Your buddy across the street? Same way.
Fifty billion is a lot.
So, this is likely making the billionaires in Russia nervous. They probably didn't agree with the Yukos episode but just kept quiet. Now? Who got all the wealth out of the Yukos deal when they sold it off? Well....no one in the financial world will say.
Could it take another ten years to reach maximum crisis? Yes. The Russians might be stupid enough to draw this out to 2024. But the fifty billion will have easily turned into two-hundred-and-fifty-billion after ten years. I suspect the court believes it might happen. For the Yukos investment crowd.....half will be dead by that point.....but the survivors will get way more than they ever expected.
I'm guessing Putin and his staff are simply saying they won't pay it. But after they've watched an asset or two seized....especially natural gas or oil related....it'll turn into a bigger mess.
All of this leads back 2003, and you have to wonder if the Putin team understood what they were doing and grasped the long-term implications. Fifty billion is a fair sum and to find yourself inventing taxes to cover a random act of stupidity from a decade ago.....well....it's a tough episode. Especially after the aircraft shoot-down in Ukraine, and the whole civil war business in the Ukraine.
Bild: Islam's Obsticles
Over the weekend....Germany's publication Bild (the German version of USA Today and National Enquirer).....put out an interesting commentary by one of it's chief editors.
Basically....the commentary went that Islam was an obstacle to integration into German society. Between physical threats, vocal threats, violence, and intimidation....all hindered a new Muslim trying to integrate into German society.
This commentary quickly drew various upset Muslims and various political players of Germany.
On the other side of this.....a great number of Germans came to read the words and agree with the basic commentary.....there is an obstacle in existence, whether people want to admit it or not.
Years ago, I came to make some observations about immigrants coming into Germany.
First, most came because of crappy lifestyles, corrupt politics, miserable chances at getting ahead, unsafe neighborhoods for their families, and screwed-up priorities by the public-at-large in their native lands. They left....coming to Germany....to find a better place.
Most people in search of this new land strategy.....come with no anchors. They refuse to drag all the problems of their old homeland into the new "paradise". When you look at Chinese nationals who've come to Germany....they carried no anchors. Neither did the White-Russians. Neither are the Africans dragging their anchors into Germany.
Curiously.....Muslims found the need for the anchor....never questioning themselves months later or years later.....why they left the old country, and why things got so bad or miserable in the old country. It's a mystery why they left. It's a mystery why they started to get back into old habits in the new country. It's a mystery why they question the new country....even through they won't dare think about going back to the old country.
Second, generally if you walk up to a hundred folks on the street of some town and ask about their "status"....they usually answer they are a Hessen (their state) or a German. You'd have to go through about ten thousand Germans to get one to answer he's a Catholic or a Mormon or a Scientology individual.
If you go up to a hundred individuals from Middle Eastern states....the answer gets complicated in probably eighty percent of the answers. The answer might be a Turk-German, German-Turk, a Turk, a Muslim, etc. Some will openly admit that since Dad immigrated here in 1983....they've only been back to Turkey on two occasions....speak almost no Turkish whatsoever....can't even name the President of Turkey....yet they will refer to themselves as Turk-German.
Third and final....it's an odd thing that I've come to notice off German forum shows....there just aren't that many intellectual Muslims. Maybe it's the fault of the TV show producers. Maybe there's just a limited number and they are fairly busy with real work to answer. But you get the impression that it's a mighty small group.
Turkish comedians? Well.....that's a totally different story. Over the past five years, I've come to note several dozen Turkish or Middle-Eastern comedians who've made it big in Germany. Their chief topic of humor? Well....they will trash Germans, Turks, Egyptians, dimwits, intellectuals, etc.
The problem here is fairly identifiable. There's some groups of Muslims who came into Germany....looking for the "American-dream" type environment.
They found it....but they never asked themselves why things got so screwed up in the old country....forcing themselves to leave.
If you look at Germans who left Germany.....they will list out the dozen reasons for leaving. Usually taxes are high on the list. More opportunity usually makes it. More open land (the Montana mentality) is on the list. Less regulation is always on the list. They know why they left. I don't get the same impression from the Muslim crowd.
Me? I'm a guest in Germany....pure and simple. I don't intend to take work away from a German....cause chaos or trouble.....trigger trouble with the cops.....violate German law intentionally, or insult Germans in a bold fashion. If I do poke fun at Germans.....if you look a step deeper.....I tend to poke fun at Americans just as much.
In the south....guests are usually treated politely....offered a fine seat on the front porch.....offered fresh-made ice-tea with some ice....and they offer simple conversation on various topics of interest. They might insult the local Baptist minister a bit. There might be some harsh words over Democrats or Republicans. Some ugly talk might come up about NCAA football and bowl committee choices. But, a guest is kinda bound to act within reason....while visiting.
I've always taken this guest-mentality as far as possible. Muslims in Germany? My general advice is that it might be worth looking into the guest-mentality. Germans might appreciate it.
Basically....the commentary went that Islam was an obstacle to integration into German society. Between physical threats, vocal threats, violence, and intimidation....all hindered a new Muslim trying to integrate into German society.
This commentary quickly drew various upset Muslims and various political players of Germany.
On the other side of this.....a great number of Germans came to read the words and agree with the basic commentary.....there is an obstacle in existence, whether people want to admit it or not.
Years ago, I came to make some observations about immigrants coming into Germany.
First, most came because of crappy lifestyles, corrupt politics, miserable chances at getting ahead, unsafe neighborhoods for their families, and screwed-up priorities by the public-at-large in their native lands. They left....coming to Germany....to find a better place.
Most people in search of this new land strategy.....come with no anchors. They refuse to drag all the problems of their old homeland into the new "paradise". When you look at Chinese nationals who've come to Germany....they carried no anchors. Neither did the White-Russians. Neither are the Africans dragging their anchors into Germany.
Curiously.....Muslims found the need for the anchor....never questioning themselves months later or years later.....why they left the old country, and why things got so bad or miserable in the old country. It's a mystery why they left. It's a mystery why they started to get back into old habits in the new country. It's a mystery why they question the new country....even through they won't dare think about going back to the old country.
Second, generally if you walk up to a hundred folks on the street of some town and ask about their "status"....they usually answer they are a Hessen (their state) or a German. You'd have to go through about ten thousand Germans to get one to answer he's a Catholic or a Mormon or a Scientology individual.
If you go up to a hundred individuals from Middle Eastern states....the answer gets complicated in probably eighty percent of the answers. The answer might be a Turk-German, German-Turk, a Turk, a Muslim, etc. Some will openly admit that since Dad immigrated here in 1983....they've only been back to Turkey on two occasions....speak almost no Turkish whatsoever....can't even name the President of Turkey....yet they will refer to themselves as Turk-German.
Third and final....it's an odd thing that I've come to notice off German forum shows....there just aren't that many intellectual Muslims. Maybe it's the fault of the TV show producers. Maybe there's just a limited number and they are fairly busy with real work to answer. But you get the impression that it's a mighty small group.
Turkish comedians? Well.....that's a totally different story. Over the past five years, I've come to note several dozen Turkish or Middle-Eastern comedians who've made it big in Germany. Their chief topic of humor? Well....they will trash Germans, Turks, Egyptians, dimwits, intellectuals, etc.
The problem here is fairly identifiable. There's some groups of Muslims who came into Germany....looking for the "American-dream" type environment.
They found it....but they never asked themselves why things got so screwed up in the old country....forcing themselves to leave.
If you look at Germans who left Germany.....they will list out the dozen reasons for leaving. Usually taxes are high on the list. More opportunity usually makes it. More open land (the Montana mentality) is on the list. Less regulation is always on the list. They know why they left. I don't get the same impression from the Muslim crowd.
Me? I'm a guest in Germany....pure and simple. I don't intend to take work away from a German....cause chaos or trouble.....trigger trouble with the cops.....violate German law intentionally, or insult Germans in a bold fashion. If I do poke fun at Germans.....if you look a step deeper.....I tend to poke fun at Americans just as much.
In the south....guests are usually treated politely....offered a fine seat on the front porch.....offered fresh-made ice-tea with some ice....and they offer simple conversation on various topics of interest. They might insult the local Baptist minister a bit. There might be some harsh words over Democrats or Republicans. Some ugly talk might come up about NCAA football and bowl committee choices. But, a guest is kinda bound to act within reason....while visiting.
I've always taken this guest-mentality as far as possible. Muslims in Germany? My general advice is that it might be worth looking into the guest-mentality. Germans might appreciate it.
Friday, July 25, 2014
Why German Electricity Costs So Much
It's a nifty little article on Bloomberg today. It tells a basic story over German electrical rates and why things have risen so much over the past decade.
Once upon a time.....folks got all hyper about nuke power and coal power in Germany. Both were evil. We were told this in the 1980s, and almost weekly....some German newspaper blasted away at the terrible price Germans were going to pay for a nuke accident or pollution from the coal used in running the electrical plants.
German usage of electricity? The average average capita rate (per person) is 861 watts (Wiki's numbers). Some countries like Sweden and Norway are way above that (2000 or more). But Germany compares easily to Austria or Switzerland with the same per capita.
Various decisions were made over the past two decades....to rig up the plan to terminate German nuke plants, and to force dirty-coal power plants to close. All of this....was going to lead onto more solar power and wind-generators.
There's an odd thing though. On a daily basis.....there's simply not enough wind or solar generated power and the grid is on a minute-by-minutes shortfall situation. Naturally....to prevent blackouts....you need to have plan "B".
In Germany....twenty companies are lined up to provide plan "B" coverage, when shortfalls occur. Naturally, none of this "help" is free. Companies who are in the government's circle to ensure adequate power because of the nuke and coal strategy? They can sit there and on some days....charge up to four-hundred times the normal rate. This leads onto a billion-Euro fund that the government set up.....to cover the current strategy.
How many Germans know of the shortfall energy fund (the billion Euro deal)? I would take a guess that less than a thousand know of the fund and most don't talk much about it. It's best to avoid discussions over it....because it's the only way that you avoid blackouts.
The odds of the billion-Euro fund rising in the future? It's virtually guaranteed as more nuke plants go off-line permanently, and the number of solar/wind generation plants operate.
The threat of blackouts? The average German will tell you that most of the three or four outages that come per year right now....are weather-driven....and usually last two to five hours. We are talking about a region thing, with maybe 100,000 residents in one area affected.
What happens on a calm August day...at noon....in a moderately high temperature situation....but almost no wind occurring....if regional grid for an entire state of Germany (say Hessen)....went out for twenty minutes? And the response that evening was that they had basically burned through all normal power production, used up what plan "B" option they had, and still had a shortfall? Some Germans would start to ask stupid questions.
It's one thing to have good dependable power and know a couple of times a year storms will take down your grid. It's another to come to a non-storm event and admit you just don't have enough power to run the national grid. The answer? A two-billion or three-billion Euro fund to buy excess power from others who are just grinning over your own planned stupidity? And this coming out of some tax pocket....meaning you pay really more for electricity....but the government never wants to call it the second bucket of revenue for energy consumption. Eventually, the one-billion Euro fund, will double.....it's only a matter of time.
All of this.....while Germans start to toy with the idea of battery-powered cars....that require charging from mythical electrical production creation? Yeah, this leads to a puzzling situation....but it's best not to discuss this with a German. It's all good....you know.
Once upon a time.....folks got all hyper about nuke power and coal power in Germany. Both were evil. We were told this in the 1980s, and almost weekly....some German newspaper blasted away at the terrible price Germans were going to pay for a nuke accident or pollution from the coal used in running the electrical plants.
German usage of electricity? The average average capita rate (per person) is 861 watts (Wiki's numbers). Some countries like Sweden and Norway are way above that (2000 or more). But Germany compares easily to Austria or Switzerland with the same per capita.
Various decisions were made over the past two decades....to rig up the plan to terminate German nuke plants, and to force dirty-coal power plants to close. All of this....was going to lead onto more solar power and wind-generators.
There's an odd thing though. On a daily basis.....there's simply not enough wind or solar generated power and the grid is on a minute-by-minutes shortfall situation. Naturally....to prevent blackouts....you need to have plan "B".
In Germany....twenty companies are lined up to provide plan "B" coverage, when shortfalls occur. Naturally, none of this "help" is free. Companies who are in the government's circle to ensure adequate power because of the nuke and coal strategy? They can sit there and on some days....charge up to four-hundred times the normal rate. This leads onto a billion-Euro fund that the government set up.....to cover the current strategy.
How many Germans know of the shortfall energy fund (the billion Euro deal)? I would take a guess that less than a thousand know of the fund and most don't talk much about it. It's best to avoid discussions over it....because it's the only way that you avoid blackouts.
The odds of the billion-Euro fund rising in the future? It's virtually guaranteed as more nuke plants go off-line permanently, and the number of solar/wind generation plants operate.
The threat of blackouts? The average German will tell you that most of the three or four outages that come per year right now....are weather-driven....and usually last two to five hours. We are talking about a region thing, with maybe 100,000 residents in one area affected.
What happens on a calm August day...at noon....in a moderately high temperature situation....but almost no wind occurring....if regional grid for an entire state of Germany (say Hessen)....went out for twenty minutes? And the response that evening was that they had basically burned through all normal power production, used up what plan "B" option they had, and still had a shortfall? Some Germans would start to ask stupid questions.
It's one thing to have good dependable power and know a couple of times a year storms will take down your grid. It's another to come to a non-storm event and admit you just don't have enough power to run the national grid. The answer? A two-billion or three-billion Euro fund to buy excess power from others who are just grinning over your own planned stupidity? And this coming out of some tax pocket....meaning you pay really more for electricity....but the government never wants to call it the second bucket of revenue for energy consumption. Eventually, the one-billion Euro fund, will double.....it's only a matter of time.
All of this.....while Germans start to toy with the idea of battery-powered cars....that require charging from mythical electrical production creation? Yeah, this leads to a puzzling situation....but it's best not to discuss this with a German. It's all good....you know.
The German Spy Business
Up until this week....Germany's secret agents watching foreign agents operate in Germany....had a certain list of countries that they didn't trust, and a certain list that they did trust. That changed. They now operate with a "360-degree view"....meaning no single country is given a free-pass to operate and conduct spying operations in Germany.
The intention? Well....the US and Britain are both on the bad-boy list, and the CIA/NSA guys in Germany can now expect to have "Huns und Franz" on their tail as they drive around the German countryside.
How many spies are in Germany? Well....no one really says much on that. You see....there are economic spies, energy sector spies, news media spies, industrial spies, government spies, beer spies, bank spies, technology spies, spies watching spies, investment spies, scientific development spies, political spies, etc.
If you ever make a trip out to Berlin....one of the fifty-odd things that you might come across is the CDU headquarters in central Berlin (the plexiglass building). If you walk around the block....there's the North Korean embassy. It's an odd place from where most countries operate embassy operations in town (near the Bundestag or on the east side of town). Use of the embassy to spy on CDU internal politics? Well....I might wonder about that.
Chinese spies within the technology sector? A number of smart Chinese German-university graduates have stayed and work on various projects in the private technology sector. One might wonder about their relationships and how they shift discoveries back to China.
British spies within the banking sector of Germany? It's a pretty good chance that dozens exist. The data taken? Well....it gets shifted around and various entities in Britain benefit in some fashion.
Russian spies in the energy sector? It wouldn't take much to place a dozen spies at the disposal of the Russian Gazprom folks, watch for favorable trends, and ensure that profits stay high for the Russian natural gas giant.
US spies sitting around and trying to get Merkel's calendar for August? Well....yeah, there might be some stupid idiots wasting time and resources to get a stupid Merkel calendar with almost zero value. Twenty thousand Euro here and there....for worthless information? Well....yeah....we aren't known for brilliant strategies or handling money well.
This 360-degree view business? This is where it leads. You can't do this type of operation with the current crew of German internal spy-watch team. So, you will have to recruit....hire....and find more than a thousand new folks to be spy-watchers. Overnight? Zero potential. It'll take a minimum of a year to hire enough folks to do this type of work, and figure training will consume another year. So any real results from this....will be probably two years from now.
Where do you find these new spy recruits? You basically put an ad in a couple of national newspapers....looking for "audit" people, but give a wide range for the job description....to include travel....long hours....opportunities for advancement. Somewhere in the interview process, they will spring it on you.....you will be this German version of James Bond....watching spies within Germany. You don't really care about the title or James Bond thing....you simply ask about benefits, pay and travel allowance.
At some point four years from now....some German political committee will wake up....realize that twenty-five of their spy-watcher crewmembers are working for France, China, Russia, Italy and the US. So they will talk of a new crew.....spy-watchers of the spy-watchers.
Am I cynical of this whole thing? Yeah....it's like a bunch of teenage kids who just woke and realized that the teachers at the school have a corrupt grading system, and they just can't believe it....and they want to fix it immediately. The kids wake up months later to find solution simply lead onto more corrupt grades.
The intention? Well....the US and Britain are both on the bad-boy list, and the CIA/NSA guys in Germany can now expect to have "Huns und Franz" on their tail as they drive around the German countryside.
How many spies are in Germany? Well....no one really says much on that. You see....there are economic spies, energy sector spies, news media spies, industrial spies, government spies, beer spies, bank spies, technology spies, spies watching spies, investment spies, scientific development spies, political spies, etc.
If you ever make a trip out to Berlin....one of the fifty-odd things that you might come across is the CDU headquarters in central Berlin (the plexiglass building). If you walk around the block....there's the North Korean embassy. It's an odd place from where most countries operate embassy operations in town (near the Bundestag or on the east side of town). Use of the embassy to spy on CDU internal politics? Well....I might wonder about that.
Chinese spies within the technology sector? A number of smart Chinese German-university graduates have stayed and work on various projects in the private technology sector. One might wonder about their relationships and how they shift discoveries back to China.
British spies within the banking sector of Germany? It's a pretty good chance that dozens exist. The data taken? Well....it gets shifted around and various entities in Britain benefit in some fashion.
Russian spies in the energy sector? It wouldn't take much to place a dozen spies at the disposal of the Russian Gazprom folks, watch for favorable trends, and ensure that profits stay high for the Russian natural gas giant.
US spies sitting around and trying to get Merkel's calendar for August? Well....yeah, there might be some stupid idiots wasting time and resources to get a stupid Merkel calendar with almost zero value. Twenty thousand Euro here and there....for worthless information? Well....yeah....we aren't known for brilliant strategies or handling money well.
This 360-degree view business? This is where it leads. You can't do this type of operation with the current crew of German internal spy-watch team. So, you will have to recruit....hire....and find more than a thousand new folks to be spy-watchers. Overnight? Zero potential. It'll take a minimum of a year to hire enough folks to do this type of work, and figure training will consume another year. So any real results from this....will be probably two years from now.
Where do you find these new spy recruits? You basically put an ad in a couple of national newspapers....looking for "audit" people, but give a wide range for the job description....to include travel....long hours....opportunities for advancement. Somewhere in the interview process, they will spring it on you.....you will be this German version of James Bond....watching spies within Germany. You don't really care about the title or James Bond thing....you simply ask about benefits, pay and travel allowance.
At some point four years from now....some German political committee will wake up....realize that twenty-five of their spy-watcher crewmembers are working for France, China, Russia, Italy and the US. So they will talk of a new crew.....spy-watchers of the spy-watchers.
Am I cynical of this whole thing? Yeah....it's like a bunch of teenage kids who just woke and realized that the teachers at the school have a corrupt grading system, and they just can't believe it....and they want to fix it immediately. The kids wake up months later to find solution simply lead onto more corrupt grades.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
The Airport Story
For a couple of decades....Zweibrucken Air Base quietly existed....at the very end of Germany, next to the French border....about an hour southwest of Ramstein. When it closed in 1991....the locals wanted to transform the runway area (8,700 feet long) into a commercial airport. For the most part, it was not a bright idea because Saarbrucken Airport was just a twenty minute drive away. Two low-budget airports just weren't going to support enough business.
For a lot of Americans who lived around Zweibrucken during the glory years....it was a great area and a quiet location with nothing much going on.
Today, the political figures met in Mainz and kinda agreed that Zweibrucken Airport is about to collapse and needs an infusion of cash....from the EU pot. The number quoted by the Rhein-Zeitung? Around fifty-six million Euro (figure roughly $65 million dollars).
The problem? Neither Zweibrucken or Saarbrucken are pulling any good numbers, and the EU rules allow the emergency pot of money for only one airport within a certain region. Zweibrucken will be the one that gets the cash.
How many passengers does Zweibrucken have potential for? In 2010, there were 264,000 passengers that transited the airport toward some summer vacation destination. The airport served as a package-tour hub for folks going to coastal areas of Spain or Turkey. The open airport parking area was an attraction, and the ramp area having plenty of parking was a plus.
How will the fifty-six million Euro be used? The political folks just hint that it's for marketing and operations. I'm guessing they will try to get several tour package companies interested....maybe with a bus deal thrown in, or some deal to get new vacation get-aways enticed (maybe to Qatar, London, or Scotland). Maybe even Icelandic Air might have some interest.
In the US....you'd just run regular daily operations to make an airport profitable, or you'd allow Congress to just give money to airlines to land at some spot....when there just wasn't enough passengers to make it work profit-wise. In Germany.....there's too many EU rules over doing things like this now.....so some airports will start to fail, and just go under.
For a lot of Americans who lived around Zweibrucken during the glory years....it was a great area and a quiet location with nothing much going on.
Today, the political figures met in Mainz and kinda agreed that Zweibrucken Airport is about to collapse and needs an infusion of cash....from the EU pot. The number quoted by the Rhein-Zeitung? Around fifty-six million Euro (figure roughly $65 million dollars).
The problem? Neither Zweibrucken or Saarbrucken are pulling any good numbers, and the EU rules allow the emergency pot of money for only one airport within a certain region. Zweibrucken will be the one that gets the cash.
How many passengers does Zweibrucken have potential for? In 2010, there were 264,000 passengers that transited the airport toward some summer vacation destination. The airport served as a package-tour hub for folks going to coastal areas of Spain or Turkey. The open airport parking area was an attraction, and the ramp area having plenty of parking was a plus.
How will the fifty-six million Euro be used? The political folks just hint that it's for marketing and operations. I'm guessing they will try to get several tour package companies interested....maybe with a bus deal thrown in, or some deal to get new vacation get-aways enticed (maybe to Qatar, London, or Scotland). Maybe even Icelandic Air might have some interest.
In the US....you'd just run regular daily operations to make an airport profitable, or you'd allow Congress to just give money to airlines to land at some spot....when there just wasn't enough passengers to make it work profit-wise. In Germany.....there's too many EU rules over doing things like this now.....so some airports will start to fail, and just go under.
Sunday, July 20, 2014
The German Who Deserves a Movie
There is an odd thing about this German art collector who got himself into the news in 2013, and died recently here in May. Cornelius Gurlitt was around eighty when German customs agents stumbled across him on some train with a fair amount of cash....which alerted them to some suspicious status in life. You see....once they sat down days later and looked at his name....it's an odd thing. He's registered in Munich....but never has appeared to have earned a dime in his life, not listed in the phonebook (mostly because he has no phone), and never had a job in his life (meaning he's never never paid taxes).
So they came to his residence, and found the thirteen-hundred-odd paintings from the Nazi era.
Somewhere in an interview over the past year....Gurlitt came to admit a strange fact about his past. He hadn't watched any TV since 1963.
It's an odd year. He doesn't really go into detail or explain why 1963 came to be the last year that he ever viewed a TV program. In some ways, I wished he'd been tossed one more question and asked what drove him from German TV programming.
What happened in 1963? Kennedy is assassinated and the coverage of the funeral is broadcast on most all European state-run networks. One might guess that Gurlitt was heavily affected by this, but it's only an assumption.
But there's this other odd item which came up in the summer of 1963...."Dinner for One"....an 18-minute classic comedy piece was aired over West Germany. It was taken to be a national bit of humor and comedy....which Germans today will say it's absolute tradition on 31 December of each year to view it at least once.
Is it possible that Gurlitt sat there and watched "Dinner for One" and felt this was the climax of TV entertainment....that nothing could beat it? Oh, perhaps....did he see this as the pit of TV entertainment and showed the moral decay of society....refusing to never watch public TV ever again?
It's an odd situation. An old guy admits he hasn't seen TV for over fifty years, but the journalist doesn't seem to ask why.
Gurlitt in my humble opinion....is a guy who deserves a five-star movie over his briefly noted career. A guy who went through almost eighty years and never noticed by anyone....then only by some dumb luck....having a customs guy ask a few stupid questions and demand to examine his personal belongings on a train crossing into Germany....it's noted that he's got cash....more than what he ought to have. He's got no phone number. He's noted to never have worked a day in his life. And so begins a brief period of being recognized.....mostly for his art collection, which the Berlin authorities now admit....was actually his property (peeving the Bavarian state art guys greatly).
So they came to his residence, and found the thirteen-hundred-odd paintings from the Nazi era.
Somewhere in an interview over the past year....Gurlitt came to admit a strange fact about his past. He hadn't watched any TV since 1963.
It's an odd year. He doesn't really go into detail or explain why 1963 came to be the last year that he ever viewed a TV program. In some ways, I wished he'd been tossed one more question and asked what drove him from German TV programming.
What happened in 1963? Kennedy is assassinated and the coverage of the funeral is broadcast on most all European state-run networks. One might guess that Gurlitt was heavily affected by this, but it's only an assumption.
But there's this other odd item which came up in the summer of 1963...."Dinner for One"....an 18-minute classic comedy piece was aired over West Germany. It was taken to be a national bit of humor and comedy....which Germans today will say it's absolute tradition on 31 December of each year to view it at least once.
Is it possible that Gurlitt sat there and watched "Dinner for One" and felt this was the climax of TV entertainment....that nothing could beat it? Oh, perhaps....did he see this as the pit of TV entertainment and showed the moral decay of society....refusing to never watch public TV ever again?
It's an odd situation. An old guy admits he hasn't seen TV for over fifty years, but the journalist doesn't seem to ask why.
Gurlitt in my humble opinion....is a guy who deserves a five-star movie over his briefly noted career. A guy who went through almost eighty years and never noticed by anyone....then only by some dumb luck....having a customs guy ask a few stupid questions and demand to examine his personal belongings on a train crossing into Germany....it's noted that he's got cash....more than what he ought to have. He's got no phone number. He's noted to never have worked a day in his life. And so begins a brief period of being recognized.....mostly for his art collection, which the Berlin authorities now admit....was actually his property (peeving the Bavarian state art guys greatly).
Saturday, July 19, 2014
The Happy Dane Story
There are always odd stories that pop up here in Europe....that make you want to ask more questions.
This week....a German economic institute sat down and laid out research that they'd done on Denmark and this happiness factor. If you didn't know....for a decade or two....various polls had been indicating Danes are awful happy people....in good times and bad.
Naturally, the general journalist explanation was that Denmark had sufficient taxes and made sure everyone in society there equally suffered.....thus the poor were non-existent and this all led to socialist values being wonderful....if you'd just do it the Danish way.
All through the years that I'd heard this explanation and the general polling data....I'd just shake my head. It just didn't make a lot of sense, and someone ought to do a real poll, with Danes who left Denmark years ago and see if they were the same happy way in their new country.
Well...the is Center for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) did the research with Danes who left the country figured into the mix, and the German economic group IZA published it.
It's kinda shocking. Danes have this DNA additive that some other cultures lack. Danes have this extra bit of gene that helps the brain produce the mode happiness chemical of Serotonin. So, you can take a Dane out of Denmark for years and years.....putting him into Italy, New Jersey, Oklahoma, or even Columbus, Mississippi......and he's still pumping out this Serotonin, and in a fairly happy mood.
So, they went into another part of the research.....genetic distance from Denmark. The further away from Denmark....the lower your happiness. Folks near Denmark were awful happy.....those in distances away like Greece or Turkey....lesser happy. The same goes for Spain, Russia, and various Middle Eastern cultures.
A person could sit here now and see several observations.
First, there are around 1.5 million Americans who can claim some type of Danish gene or ancestor. The majority of which live in Utah, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan (only slightly in one area of the state). If you notice.....rugged areas of the US where people are usually positive and happy.
Second, there is some reason that triggered the people clustered around Denmark 50,000 to 100,000 years ago....to have more of this gene producer of Serotonin. Just an accident? Maybe. But you'd figure something was a trigger in this.
Third, this talk for a number of years of socialist lifestyle and distribution of taxation making people happy? All bogus. You can throw out the various studies which simply kept looking just short of physical and gene data.
Fourth? A large segment of folks who live in Iceland.....came originally from Denmark. If you look around Iceland always come up on the happiness scale and folks want to "blame" this on the social lifestyle in Iceland. Sadly, it may have nothing to do with taxation, redistribution of government funding, or a big fish diet.
Fifth and final? There's this odd thing which most Danes will discuss away from the table....about the number of Muslims who are immigrating into Denmark. Danes will question the wisdom of this. Using the old logic of taxation and socialism.....then you'd think that Muslims would generally get happy after a decade or two of living in Denmark. But if you look at this study....Muslims will likely never reach this happiness stage....because they lack the same Serotonins. So, you will forever have unhappy Islamic people in Denmark.
The happy Dane? Well....he or she....is really in a naturally doped-up stage, and it doesn't matter if you took him to New Jersey to live, or taxed him at a fifty-percent rate or a five-percent rate....he'd still be happy.
This week....a German economic institute sat down and laid out research that they'd done on Denmark and this happiness factor. If you didn't know....for a decade or two....various polls had been indicating Danes are awful happy people....in good times and bad.
Naturally, the general journalist explanation was that Denmark had sufficient taxes and made sure everyone in society there equally suffered.....thus the poor were non-existent and this all led to socialist values being wonderful....if you'd just do it the Danish way.
All through the years that I'd heard this explanation and the general polling data....I'd just shake my head. It just didn't make a lot of sense, and someone ought to do a real poll, with Danes who left Denmark years ago and see if they were the same happy way in their new country.
Well...the is Center for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) did the research with Danes who left the country figured into the mix, and the German economic group IZA published it.
It's kinda shocking. Danes have this DNA additive that some other cultures lack. Danes have this extra bit of gene that helps the brain produce the mode happiness chemical of Serotonin. So, you can take a Dane out of Denmark for years and years.....putting him into Italy, New Jersey, Oklahoma, or even Columbus, Mississippi......and he's still pumping out this Serotonin, and in a fairly happy mood.
So, they went into another part of the research.....genetic distance from Denmark. The further away from Denmark....the lower your happiness. Folks near Denmark were awful happy.....those in distances away like Greece or Turkey....lesser happy. The same goes for Spain, Russia, and various Middle Eastern cultures.
A person could sit here now and see several observations.
First, there are around 1.5 million Americans who can claim some type of Danish gene or ancestor. The majority of which live in Utah, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan (only slightly in one area of the state). If you notice.....rugged areas of the US where people are usually positive and happy.
Second, there is some reason that triggered the people clustered around Denmark 50,000 to 100,000 years ago....to have more of this gene producer of Serotonin. Just an accident? Maybe. But you'd figure something was a trigger in this.
Third, this talk for a number of years of socialist lifestyle and distribution of taxation making people happy? All bogus. You can throw out the various studies which simply kept looking just short of physical and gene data.
Fourth? A large segment of folks who live in Iceland.....came originally from Denmark. If you look around Iceland always come up on the happiness scale and folks want to "blame" this on the social lifestyle in Iceland. Sadly, it may have nothing to do with taxation, redistribution of government funding, or a big fish diet.
Fifth and final? There's this odd thing which most Danes will discuss away from the table....about the number of Muslims who are immigrating into Denmark. Danes will question the wisdom of this. Using the old logic of taxation and socialism.....then you'd think that Muslims would generally get happy after a decade or two of living in Denmark. But if you look at this study....Muslims will likely never reach this happiness stage....because they lack the same Serotonins. So, you will forever have unhappy Islamic people in Denmark.
The happy Dane? Well....he or she....is really in a naturally doped-up stage, and it doesn't matter if you took him to New Jersey to live, or taxed him at a fifty-percent rate or a five-percent rate....he'd still be happy.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Germans, In the Heat of the Summer
Summer has apparently finally arrived in Germany. Some folks in the eastern part of Germany would say it was here a month ago....but for central Germany....we are about to hit 36 degrees Celsius in the next day or so....meaning 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
There are ten things that you might come to notice at this point.
First, old guys in apartment buildings with balconies can be readily seen all day long....walking around in their underwear on the balcony. They don't care, and the cops aren't going to get calls on this type of humble behavior.
Second, a heck of a lot of ice cream will be sold between noon and 6PM. For some shops....the next six weeks will be half their yearly income.
Third, when the new and modern train pulls up and you get onboard for a three-hour ride, and you notice that there's AC symbol for the train....don't get peppy and think it'll be cool onboard. Generally, most Bahn trains will have AC units now (at since the late 1990s it's been the practice to buy only such trains).....but the units basically chill the air as long as it's 30 degrees Celsius. Once you get over that point.....air is simply circulated, and it's like a sauna. Halfway through this trip, you will question the wisdom of staying onboard, and if you might be suffering heatstroke soon.
Fourth, apple wine and beer is consumed at a fairly high rate in the afternoons.
Fifth, roughly ninety-nine percent of all German homes lack AC units. So when you notice your neighbor all tense, frustrated, and hostile after a day of 36 degrees Celsius....you might understand their mood.
Sixth, German teens usually escape the heat by heading off to the local pool complex.
Seventh, it's always interesting to wander by a road construction site under the summer heat, and observe almost every single guy without a shirt....dark tanned....no sun-tan lotion being used.....looking like some Bruce Willis character.
Eighth, the effect of the heat on concrete houses? Well...the concrete absorbs the heat. So by day six of a prolonged heat period.....the interior temperature generally stays up around 35 degrees Celsius even at 11PM, and barely cools off by sunlight the next day. Hence, the reason why so many Germans are miserable a week or two into the heat period, and it's very noticeable.
Ninth, thunderstorms? Well....for some reason, the general tendency in heat like this...especially in later afternoons....is massive thunderstorms. Naturally, the humidity goes up and you get twice as miserable as you were three hours prior.
Tenth, the only general relief you can find is either shopping in stores with AC units and just pretending to look for a bargain.....at three hours a whack.....or parking yourself under a shade tree in a local park. Otherwise, it's a tendency to sit and complain about the heat.
There are ten things that you might come to notice at this point.
First, old guys in apartment buildings with balconies can be readily seen all day long....walking around in their underwear on the balcony. They don't care, and the cops aren't going to get calls on this type of humble behavior.
Second, a heck of a lot of ice cream will be sold between noon and 6PM. For some shops....the next six weeks will be half their yearly income.
Third, when the new and modern train pulls up and you get onboard for a three-hour ride, and you notice that there's AC symbol for the train....don't get peppy and think it'll be cool onboard. Generally, most Bahn trains will have AC units now (at since the late 1990s it's been the practice to buy only such trains).....but the units basically chill the air as long as it's 30 degrees Celsius. Once you get over that point.....air is simply circulated, and it's like a sauna. Halfway through this trip, you will question the wisdom of staying onboard, and if you might be suffering heatstroke soon.
Fourth, apple wine and beer is consumed at a fairly high rate in the afternoons.
Fifth, roughly ninety-nine percent of all German homes lack AC units. So when you notice your neighbor all tense, frustrated, and hostile after a day of 36 degrees Celsius....you might understand their mood.
Sixth, German teens usually escape the heat by heading off to the local pool complex.
Seventh, it's always interesting to wander by a road construction site under the summer heat, and observe almost every single guy without a shirt....dark tanned....no sun-tan lotion being used.....looking like some Bruce Willis character.
Eighth, the effect of the heat on concrete houses? Well...the concrete absorbs the heat. So by day six of a prolonged heat period.....the interior temperature generally stays up around 35 degrees Celsius even at 11PM, and barely cools off by sunlight the next day. Hence, the reason why so many Germans are miserable a week or two into the heat period, and it's very noticeable.
Ninth, thunderstorms? Well....for some reason, the general tendency in heat like this...especially in later afternoons....is massive thunderstorms. Naturally, the humidity goes up and you get twice as miserable as you were three hours prior.
Tenth, the only general relief you can find is either shopping in stores with AC units and just pretending to look for a bargain.....at three hours a whack.....or parking yourself under a shade tree in a local park. Otherwise, it's a tendency to sit and complain about the heat.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
The Burka Story
The EU has a court of sorts....whose chief job is to monitor EU countries and render verdicts over human rights violations. To be honest, with the standards of most EU countries....there's not a hotbed of activity for this court to handle....at least until the last year.
You see....those pesky French folks went out and got hostile over the Burka....the traditional head and facial covering of Islamic gals. In 2011, the French made up this rule....you can wear a covering over your hair, but that's it. No full facial bukas. No Niqab, which allows only the eyes to be seen. So you only have two options, the Tschador (which shows the outline of your face), or the Hidschab (which shows the face and the neck).
The EU Court for Human Rights....got dragged into the French debate, and finally decided in the last week or two that there wasn't any rights violated. The French simply stated what you had to do....to comply with accepted society expectations.
Almost immediately, Catalonia (the northeastern state of Spain) announced that they'd run up the same regulation.
Naturally, a curious American watching all of this....would ask stupid questions. How did the court make it's decision? Well....they said that we all "live together"....which means you need to fit within your local society and culture. Hiding yourself.....just won't work.
Is this a big deal? That's the curious thing. What the French say is that at best....there's roughly two thousand women in all of France....who did the full-up Burka thing. Yeah.....just two thousand.
Here in Wiesbaden? In a full year that I've been around in Hessen (Mainz, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, the airport, etc).....I've seen a total of four women in full-up Burkas. I will admit that the Hidschab is fairly popular....I've probably seen two thousand such women in that attire. If you walk around the shopping district of Wiesbaden.....you might notice twenty such women on a typical day.
For me personally, the Hidschab attire isn't a big deal. I think the whole thing is kinda hot/sweaty on a July afternoon with temperatures in the 35 Celsius range (90 degrees). I'd have to drink an awful lot of ice tea after I walked around shopping if I wore this outfit. Otherwise, it's Ok.
Muslims upset by this EU ruling? No. I'd suspect that ninety-eight percent of all Muslims in Germany don't care. Most Turks that came in over the past forty years.....never wear the Burka. I'd say the same thing for most Syrians that have immigrated into Germany. So, it's only a few oddball groups that are extreme in their beliefs and press the wives to continue on. Yet, the guy who is in this environment.....observes the open-blouse situations of various German women and just grins.
Where does this lead onto? Comments in various German newspapers indicate that several states are reviewing their own dress regulation, and likely to go the French-way. Bavaria....I'm guessing will lead on this. Hessen? Dead-last....because of this Greens-CDU relationship running the state government.
You see....those pesky French folks went out and got hostile over the Burka....the traditional head and facial covering of Islamic gals. In 2011, the French made up this rule....you can wear a covering over your hair, but that's it. No full facial bukas. No Niqab, which allows only the eyes to be seen. So you only have two options, the Tschador (which shows the outline of your face), or the Hidschab (which shows the face and the neck).
The EU Court for Human Rights....got dragged into the French debate, and finally decided in the last week or two that there wasn't any rights violated. The French simply stated what you had to do....to comply with accepted society expectations.
Almost immediately, Catalonia (the northeastern state of Spain) announced that they'd run up the same regulation.
Naturally, a curious American watching all of this....would ask stupid questions. How did the court make it's decision? Well....they said that we all "live together"....which means you need to fit within your local society and culture. Hiding yourself.....just won't work.
Is this a big deal? That's the curious thing. What the French say is that at best....there's roughly two thousand women in all of France....who did the full-up Burka thing. Yeah.....just two thousand.
Here in Wiesbaden? In a full year that I've been around in Hessen (Mainz, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, the airport, etc).....I've seen a total of four women in full-up Burkas. I will admit that the Hidschab is fairly popular....I've probably seen two thousand such women in that attire. If you walk around the shopping district of Wiesbaden.....you might notice twenty such women on a typical day.
For me personally, the Hidschab attire isn't a big deal. I think the whole thing is kinda hot/sweaty on a July afternoon with temperatures in the 35 Celsius range (90 degrees). I'd have to drink an awful lot of ice tea after I walked around shopping if I wore this outfit. Otherwise, it's Ok.
Muslims upset by this EU ruling? No. I'd suspect that ninety-eight percent of all Muslims in Germany don't care. Most Turks that came in over the past forty years.....never wear the Burka. I'd say the same thing for most Syrians that have immigrated into Germany. So, it's only a few oddball groups that are extreme in their beliefs and press the wives to continue on. Yet, the guy who is in this environment.....observes the open-blouse situations of various German women and just grins.
Where does this lead onto? Comments in various German newspapers indicate that several states are reviewing their own dress regulation, and likely to go the French-way. Bavaria....I'm guessing will lead on this. Hessen? Dead-last....because of this Greens-CDU relationship running the state government.
Overcoming NSA?
I'm generally suspicious of British newspapers. Some stories are absolutely correct, and some are generally bogus with no facts.
So, today's Telegraph brings us up to date on what the Germans are considering as actions to counter the NSA, and the spy apparatus.
First, a return to classical music played during sensitive meeting to drown out someone who might be listening in on the conversation. This was apparently announced by the head of the Bundestag committee (a CDU guy) at yesterday's meeting. The choice of music? Edvard Grieg's piano concerto, in A-minor.
Nothing was said from the Greens or SPD. I'm guessing they played along with this. It would suggest that some German intellectuals are in charge of the music choices....because Led Zeppelin, Heino, German country and western and Michael Jackson music were not used.
How long will the concerto music be used? I'm guessing until some guy gets really frazzled or whacked-out from the music stuff, and goes nuts in front of his committee peers. Another committee will then start up.....trying to determine if excessive music while in government business could cause you to go crazy.
Second? There is serious talk of dumping computers for all highly classified work, and returning to typewriters. This has only been started in the last couple of days, and it's hard to say where it'll go.
There's only a dozen-odd companies left in the world who manufacture typewriters. Most are in the Mexico, South America or Asia (China). The odds of the US and China having installed a bugging device into each typewriter imported into Germany? It'd take a couple of hours to start such a practice and you could buy them as they get put into the boxes.
A German company manufacturing typewriters? There are none. That line of business kinda ended by the mid-1990s, with most brands exiting Germany for production because they couldn't make a cheap German-manufactured typewriter. To make a top quality electric typewriter in today's environment, for expected German standards? I'd take a humble guess at the pricing to run a minimum of 1,000 Euro, and maybe even go up to 1,400 Euro. A Mexican-made low-quality typewriter (one that would last three years and does just the minimum stuff)? It'll run you around $150. I know because I had to buy one for our HR office gals at my old job.
What this leads onto? Well....you could imagine a whole new market in white-out and correction tape, along with ribbon-manufacturing.
Of course, the German typing enthusiasts working in these secure jobs will balk at the regular old-fashion typewriters, and demand the memory storage unit type that you can type and store your product. Then the security guy will stand up and say that's how we got into all this mess in the first place....so....NO, you can't have the memory storage unit typewriters.
What then occurs....is limited papers and notes on some issue of classified nature. Instead of the typical forty-page documents on something.....German ministers will start to note that the memo-production level has gone down to two pages. The Chancellor will ask questions....if there's something wrong here, and the response will be that people don't want to use the typewriters.
What the British press suggests....might be somewhat true....although somewhat comical in nature.
I'm guessing another step or two will occur, with a whole division of new employees created....to continually check out German government employees and their bank accounts or purchases. Another division might be created to continually spy on American embassy personnel and their private lives. Another division will likely be created on Washington DC. Of course, all of this will lead to more personnel, more cost, and more taxation.
Perhaps the question should be....what exactly is the German government doing....of such significance....of a classified nature....that the US government would waste tons of man-hours and cash on instead of jihad-players? Maybe after you answer this.....you'd start to think about creating tons of bogus German classified information, and make the US waste twice as much time on collecting worthless data and using precious US tax revenue on worthless German information.
So, today's Telegraph brings us up to date on what the Germans are considering as actions to counter the NSA, and the spy apparatus.
First, a return to classical music played during sensitive meeting to drown out someone who might be listening in on the conversation. This was apparently announced by the head of the Bundestag committee (a CDU guy) at yesterday's meeting. The choice of music? Edvard Grieg's piano concerto, in A-minor.
Nothing was said from the Greens or SPD. I'm guessing they played along with this. It would suggest that some German intellectuals are in charge of the music choices....because Led Zeppelin, Heino, German country and western and Michael Jackson music were not used.
How long will the concerto music be used? I'm guessing until some guy gets really frazzled or whacked-out from the music stuff, and goes nuts in front of his committee peers. Another committee will then start up.....trying to determine if excessive music while in government business could cause you to go crazy.
Second? There is serious talk of dumping computers for all highly classified work, and returning to typewriters. This has only been started in the last couple of days, and it's hard to say where it'll go.
There's only a dozen-odd companies left in the world who manufacture typewriters. Most are in the Mexico, South America or Asia (China). The odds of the US and China having installed a bugging device into each typewriter imported into Germany? It'd take a couple of hours to start such a practice and you could buy them as they get put into the boxes.
A German company manufacturing typewriters? There are none. That line of business kinda ended by the mid-1990s, with most brands exiting Germany for production because they couldn't make a cheap German-manufactured typewriter. To make a top quality electric typewriter in today's environment, for expected German standards? I'd take a humble guess at the pricing to run a minimum of 1,000 Euro, and maybe even go up to 1,400 Euro. A Mexican-made low-quality typewriter (one that would last three years and does just the minimum stuff)? It'll run you around $150. I know because I had to buy one for our HR office gals at my old job.
What this leads onto? Well....you could imagine a whole new market in white-out and correction tape, along with ribbon-manufacturing.
Of course, the German typing enthusiasts working in these secure jobs will balk at the regular old-fashion typewriters, and demand the memory storage unit type that you can type and store your product. Then the security guy will stand up and say that's how we got into all this mess in the first place....so....NO, you can't have the memory storage unit typewriters.
What then occurs....is limited papers and notes on some issue of classified nature. Instead of the typical forty-page documents on something.....German ministers will start to note that the memo-production level has gone down to two pages. The Chancellor will ask questions....if there's something wrong here, and the response will be that people don't want to use the typewriters.
What the British press suggests....might be somewhat true....although somewhat comical in nature.
I'm guessing another step or two will occur, with a whole division of new employees created....to continually check out German government employees and their bank accounts or purchases. Another division might be created to continually spy on American embassy personnel and their private lives. Another division will likely be created on Washington DC. Of course, all of this will lead to more personnel, more cost, and more taxation.
Perhaps the question should be....what exactly is the German government doing....of such significance....of a classified nature....that the US government would waste tons of man-hours and cash on instead of jihad-players? Maybe after you answer this.....you'd start to think about creating tons of bogus German classified information, and make the US waste twice as much time on collecting worthless data and using precious US tax revenue on worthless German information.
The Spy Who Left, Maybe
Graham Greene wrote a number of great spy literary pieces in his life ("Our Man in Havana" was my favorite).
As I'm watching the latest in US-German-NSA-Spy news....I'm kinda reminded of the witty situations that Greene wrote into his novels, and how some half-way usually bumbled his way to success in the end....showing that the spy business isn't exactly a choreographed play or Fortune-500 run operation.
Today, we kinda learn that the Germans are now wondering if the American spy-master out of Berlin....a diplomat or at least noted as one....has left the country as they requested. Note, they didn't demand he leave, which usually means 72-hours to pack and go. This nicer version....usually means a guy has at least seven days, and me might even stretch it a bit as long as he's showing activity.
In this case, the US government says they don't have to be publicly open over who is at the embassy or who has left. It's kind of a "secret".
Naturally, German news media folks think this is bizarre and just not the way that a legit government operation runs. Course, the same German news media don't have any inspiration to quiz folks on the meth-head political guy from the SPD, or the child-sex-pervert from the SPD (both in the last six months). Both individuals got weeks of time to clean their laptops, homes and files.....before the cops were given permission to search the residence.
As for the American spy-master? It would not surprise me if he simply packed up a suitcase, and drove his car into France....where he runs the same job and operation quietly out of the US embassy in Paris. In essence, what we Americans call.....telecommuting. You check emails, do conferences by a secure Skype connection, and operate along the same way as in the past.
I'm guessing that Chancellor Merkel's crew will come up by late next week, and ask about the guy. The US will simply say it's complied to the letter of intent, and everyone will be happy. As for the guy actually leaving Europe? I'd suspect that he hasn't left the continent. But I'm only guessing.
All of this leads me to the general script of a Graham Greene spy-novel. Some double-agents, some triple-agents, some quadruple-agents, a bored Russian mobster, some geeky NSA guys whose top data collection each week is a listing of ways to cook pork schnitzel, some intellectual German journalists who wouldn't know a one-star story from a four-star story, a couple of drunk soccer fans, a meth-head German minister, a Vietnamese pimp running a Berlin brothel, some North Korean agents selling bogus pallets of Marlboro cigarettes they've smuggled into Germany, a brilliant-pretender genius who quit the NSA saying he had morals but couldn't demonstrate them in public, a lost Obama supporter who discovered the Noble Prize is worthless, and a team of CIA agents out of Mainz whose intent is to be on the inside of Channel Two (ZDF) and create a scandal to bring down the TV network chiefs.
Yeah, I could write such a Greene-style novel....but who would believe it?
Monday, July 14, 2014
My Weekend
I had one of those unusual weekends, with two significant events.
First, I was downtown Wiesbaden on Saturday....at the Saturn (our big multi-media shop). Mid-afternoon, I was about to exit the shop, and noted some guy walking in front of me with a tablet box....heading toward the checkout....then he does a 30-degree turn suddenly, exiting the store, and heading toward the escalator. Fair amount of speed and he's acting weird....then it hits me....he's robbing the store.
Yeah....he actually gets to the escalator and maybe a second later....some guy exits the side door of the store and gives into a chase. The robber kid (maybe nineteen)....doesn't really notice this guy for about two seconds, then turns to see the security guy in a full run.
The kid made good time down the escalator and probably had a twenty-foot lead....then headed toward the exit point of the mall and was going to run down the street. Not sure if the kid got away or not. Pretty stupid practice.....local cops might get the call, tap into the event, and want to escort you to your apartment.....then they'll inventory the contents and compare against recent reported robbery reports.
The second event was a old folks home "fest" in the local area. The wife has a relative in one, and we attended the Sunday "fest". Figure around sixty patients at the facility, and at least four-hundred relatives who attended the episode.
What got me was the number of political figures who showed up. The whole first hour was eaten up by six to seven politicians. Three or four read off prepared speeches.....talking up good medical care and the great help of the local party in getting things done. One of the guys who did a speech was the state fitness chief (yeah, I'm guessing he's in charge of something but it's hard to figure what). This guy did the speech with no cards or script....talking up to ten minutes....on local weather, wonderful people, and fine healthcare.
The thing is....this is a "free" deal where each party knows that they've got five-hundred folks standing there and that one speech might be the one to convince someone to flip from one party to another.....in their world....every single vote counts.
The odds of getting some attendance like this at US events? It's hard to say if 500 folks would be enough to draw US political folks out. Maybe the mayor and city council, but you wouldn't get some state party representative to chat for ten minutes like this.
I hinted to my wife that I enjoyed the free food and company at the event.....but I sure wouldn't go next year if there's going to be another hour of political speeches given.
First, I was downtown Wiesbaden on Saturday....at the Saturn (our big multi-media shop). Mid-afternoon, I was about to exit the shop, and noted some guy walking in front of me with a tablet box....heading toward the checkout....then he does a 30-degree turn suddenly, exiting the store, and heading toward the escalator. Fair amount of speed and he's acting weird....then it hits me....he's robbing the store.
Yeah....he actually gets to the escalator and maybe a second later....some guy exits the side door of the store and gives into a chase. The robber kid (maybe nineteen)....doesn't really notice this guy for about two seconds, then turns to see the security guy in a full run.
The kid made good time down the escalator and probably had a twenty-foot lead....then headed toward the exit point of the mall and was going to run down the street. Not sure if the kid got away or not. Pretty stupid practice.....local cops might get the call, tap into the event, and want to escort you to your apartment.....then they'll inventory the contents and compare against recent reported robbery reports.
The second event was a old folks home "fest" in the local area. The wife has a relative in one, and we attended the Sunday "fest". Figure around sixty patients at the facility, and at least four-hundred relatives who attended the episode.
What got me was the number of political figures who showed up. The whole first hour was eaten up by six to seven politicians. Three or four read off prepared speeches.....talking up good medical care and the great help of the local party in getting things done. One of the guys who did a speech was the state fitness chief (yeah, I'm guessing he's in charge of something but it's hard to figure what). This guy did the speech with no cards or script....talking up to ten minutes....on local weather, wonderful people, and fine healthcare.
The thing is....this is a "free" deal where each party knows that they've got five-hundred folks standing there and that one speech might be the one to convince someone to flip from one party to another.....in their world....every single vote counts.
The odds of getting some attendance like this at US events? It's hard to say if 500 folks would be enough to draw US political folks out. Maybe the mayor and city council, but you wouldn't get some state party representative to chat for ten minutes like this.
I hinted to my wife that I enjoyed the free food and company at the event.....but I sure wouldn't go next year if there's going to be another hour of political speeches given.
"Tower" City
The tallest? The TV tower, which went up in 1979. After that, is the CommerzBank, standing at 849 feet (1997).
Rumor has it that various real estate dealings are underway to bring about a 1,200 ft building (97 stories). The Millennium Tower....if ever built....would be the tallest in Europe. There's a fair amount of speculation if the structure will ever get off the ground.
Behind the Millennium Tower.....there's at least ten additional projects on the board (each over 500 feet tall) to be built over the next decade in Frankfurt.
If you figure 300 ft as the minimum for a "tower"....Frankfurt within ten years will have a minimum of fifty-five towers. Considering the era of big buildings in Frankfurt didn't start until the mid-60's.....it's interesting how the pace continues today with projects continually put on the board and under construction.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
A Wiesbaden Street Worth Walking
It's about a mile in length, with the tree isle the entire way.
It adds character and charm to the street.....and offers a cooling effect.
At the far west end of Rhein Strasse is the Ringkirche. It's one of the five major churches of the city.
The city acquired the property of the Ringkirche around the late 1880s, for the idea of a Lutheran church. Construction started in 1892 and was finished by 31 October 1894.What is generally said about the church is that it immediately triggered up some discussions amongst the Lutherans and the Reform Church movement. For roughly eighteen years, some type of argument continued in local society over the two religious groups, and the Reform Church ended up as the owner of this property.....while another church was constructed (completed in 1911) for the Lutherans. There's not a lot of details over this internal fight, and few historians today have any idea what drove the two groups to conflict.
The one odd thing about this particular church is that almost immediately upon completion....it had construction issues, and went through a quiet renovation phase to fix the issues. Considering all the recent construction issues (KMC, BER, etc)....it makes one wonder if there is a history here of badly conceived buildings....built and then renovated upon delivery of the building to the owners.
Anyway.....if you have an afternoon to waste.....start at the end of Rhein Strasse and do a walk all the way up the hill to the Ringkirche.
Storms over Village
I was led to my balcony when the bigger of the coon cats started demanding to enter quickly, and I stood there looking at what he apparently saw.
Black sky with swirling clouds like you'd see in Nebraska or Kansas.
Roughly three minutes passed from when I took this picture, and the rain started. A massive rain storm probably dumped three inches of rain over the next forty-odd minutes. Rarely do you ever get the skyline in Germany this 'black'.
Well....repeat again yesterday. Except this time....over a five-square mile area....it dumped just as much rain as before, and on top of that.....around an inch to two inches of hail. The village fire department was active for at least ten hours....driving around and pumping out various basements from the houses on the bottom of the valley.
In a typical month, you might get a total of two inches of rain. We are about forty percent through July and have gotten at least five-hundred percent of the normal rainfall....which leads you to wonder what else might come up.
And of course, the reaction of the Germans? Global warming.
Friday, July 11, 2014
Germans and Compulsive Oscillation
Oscillation: (my definition) a repetitive cycle, going from one far side, to the other far side.
Compulsive: (my definition) a captivating personality feature that drives a person to do something in a very particular way....sometimes to extremes.
When you take oscillation and compulsive attitudes....blending them into a culture or society.....you tend to come to think immediately of the Germans.
If you were going to start a massive recycling campaign in the US....you'd immediately find that at least half of society is uncooperative, and may never come to agree to the state-sponsored program.
In Germany, the state writes up the rules....the media puts them out into a public arena.....several months of advertisements take place....and roughly ninety percent of German society will tend to be agreeable with the new recycling program.
Within months, you discover that of the ninety percent of society accepting this radical change.....you can basically divide them into two groups....one that accepts the current program with no big issues, and the second group that is already focusing on extending the recycling idea to new and further extremes. Eventually, the second "delayed" group will catch up and agree on version two of recycling.....then discover that the first group has now moved onto even more bolder recycling concepts.
You see....Germans weren't always Germans. For this long period of the Roman era.....you basically survived by being very agreeable with authority and control. These were the invaders and you simply adjusted your life to fit within their rules.
As the Roman era came to an end....the Catholic Church came to replace the controlling authority. Germans of this period came to question things. For a Christian organization to mount fear, authority and intimidation into their agenda.....it drove Germans to ask questions and generally sparked a change in society. You could go from one extreme to the other now....thinking and questioning the things around you.
The fact that roughly three-hundred city-states, states, kingdoms, empires, etc......existed in this Germanic region simply added to the overall issue. Up through the early 1800s.....the Germans were divided and simply focused on their own town, village, or region. After the Napoleonic era....this changed, and the map of Prussia changed things into one country...one culture....one society.....and very focused on compulsive values.
The oscillation side of this situation? Germans are fairly intelligent on the rules of life and society....so they will reach a point where someone....like a Martin Luther.....will ask one dynamic question, and start a process of rethinking the big picture. Going from one extreme to another? Yes, but it's a rational thought process.....where you develop the right questions, and look for a logical answer. You reprioritize things.....you look back at simplicity.....you toss basic human rights on the table.....and you come to change. And you make this change....a very compulsive thing (the natural German tendency).
An eternal thing? No. Germans are accepting immigration changes and there's a minimum of five million foreign residents within the border of Germany today....out of the eighty million total residents. The estimations go in 2025 from eight million foreigners to ten million foreigners. And here's the interesting thing.....these Russians, Turks, Muslims, Africans, and 'others' (to include us Gringos).....are not as compulsive or oscillating. And it'll be awful hard to convince us to hardwire ourselves into this type of thinking.
So, things over the next thirty to forty years will be changing. It's hard to imagine the effects of this....except the dilution of German compulsive values will be diminished.
Just something to think about.
Compulsive: (my definition) a captivating personality feature that drives a person to do something in a very particular way....sometimes to extremes.
When you take oscillation and compulsive attitudes....blending them into a culture or society.....you tend to come to think immediately of the Germans.
If you were going to start a massive recycling campaign in the US....you'd immediately find that at least half of society is uncooperative, and may never come to agree to the state-sponsored program.
In Germany, the state writes up the rules....the media puts them out into a public arena.....several months of advertisements take place....and roughly ninety percent of German society will tend to be agreeable with the new recycling program.
Within months, you discover that of the ninety percent of society accepting this radical change.....you can basically divide them into two groups....one that accepts the current program with no big issues, and the second group that is already focusing on extending the recycling idea to new and further extremes. Eventually, the second "delayed" group will catch up and agree on version two of recycling.....then discover that the first group has now moved onto even more bolder recycling concepts.
You see....Germans weren't always Germans. For this long period of the Roman era.....you basically survived by being very agreeable with authority and control. These were the invaders and you simply adjusted your life to fit within their rules.
As the Roman era came to an end....the Catholic Church came to replace the controlling authority. Germans of this period came to question things. For a Christian organization to mount fear, authority and intimidation into their agenda.....it drove Germans to ask questions and generally sparked a change in society. You could go from one extreme to the other now....thinking and questioning the things around you.
The fact that roughly three-hundred city-states, states, kingdoms, empires, etc......existed in this Germanic region simply added to the overall issue. Up through the early 1800s.....the Germans were divided and simply focused on their own town, village, or region. After the Napoleonic era....this changed, and the map of Prussia changed things into one country...one culture....one society.....and very focused on compulsive values.
The oscillation side of this situation? Germans are fairly intelligent on the rules of life and society....so they will reach a point where someone....like a Martin Luther.....will ask one dynamic question, and start a process of rethinking the big picture. Going from one extreme to another? Yes, but it's a rational thought process.....where you develop the right questions, and look for a logical answer. You reprioritize things.....you look back at simplicity.....you toss basic human rights on the table.....and you come to change. And you make this change....a very compulsive thing (the natural German tendency).
An eternal thing? No. Germans are accepting immigration changes and there's a minimum of five million foreign residents within the border of Germany today....out of the eighty million total residents. The estimations go in 2025 from eight million foreigners to ten million foreigners. And here's the interesting thing.....these Russians, Turks, Muslims, Africans, and 'others' (to include us Gringos).....are not as compulsive or oscillating. And it'll be awful hard to convince us to hardwire ourselves into this type of thinking.
So, things over the next thirty to forty years will be changing. It's hard to imagine the effects of this....except the dilution of German compulsive values will be diminished.
Just something to think about.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Spy Fallout
This spy episode has gone onto the next phase....tossing the US spy chief in Berlin at the embassy out. There are two methods to this type of event.....with expulsion the more drastic one. This was simply the method of calling the guy in, and giving him the paperwork that he must leave within a reasonable amount of time.
The curious turn that occurred today....was that the interior ministry stood up and noted that they had reviewed the 200-odd documents that spy number one had passed over for twenty-five thousand Euro. What they indicated was that the value was pretty low....with the material all about internal operations and schedules. It was carefully worded....but you'd get the impression that whatever the US got....was worthless, and the twenty-five thousand Euro was basically thrown away.
This kinda makes me wonder if the US took the 200-odd documents and put five guys on translating them.....and then spent $300,000 on the services of various analysts.....to reach the eventual conclusion of worthless intelligence. Or did the analysts just shake their heads.....file the material....and figure some management idiot must have thought this was worth the money.
This brings me to the odd view of the US back in the 1970s....when we were deep into the cold war. The US prioritized things and they really wanted to know the absolute pure GDP of the Soviet Union, and how much went toward the military structure. For years....it was estimated with bits and pieces of intelligence that they gathered. Over the past decade....the Russians put out various documents freely, and it basically suggested that the Soviets spent a heck of a lot more than we imagined or had gathered via our intelligence. Was our intelligence efforts wasted? It's hard to say.
This spy business is difficult to measure.....kinda like walking into an antique shop and thinking you got a $7,000 painting from France, and then discovering it's a $8 painting instead.
The curious turn that occurred today....was that the interior ministry stood up and noted that they had reviewed the 200-odd documents that spy number one had passed over for twenty-five thousand Euro. What they indicated was that the value was pretty low....with the material all about internal operations and schedules. It was carefully worded....but you'd get the impression that whatever the US got....was worthless, and the twenty-five thousand Euro was basically thrown away.
This kinda makes me wonder if the US took the 200-odd documents and put five guys on translating them.....and then spent $300,000 on the services of various analysts.....to reach the eventual conclusion of worthless intelligence. Or did the analysts just shake their heads.....file the material....and figure some management idiot must have thought this was worth the money.
This brings me to the odd view of the US back in the 1970s....when we were deep into the cold war. The US prioritized things and they really wanted to know the absolute pure GDP of the Soviet Union, and how much went toward the military structure. For years....it was estimated with bits and pieces of intelligence that they gathered. Over the past decade....the Russians put out various documents freely, and it basically suggested that the Soviets spent a heck of a lot more than we imagined or had gathered via our intelligence. Was our intelligence efforts wasted? It's hard to say.
This spy business is difficult to measure.....kinda like walking into an antique shop and thinking you got a $7,000 painting from France, and then discovering it's a $8 painting instead.
ZDF's Bogus Show
Last week, ZDF (our channel two on the public-run TV listing) ran two shows....each around two hours each (no commercials).
It was a poll-like show. One for the most noted man in Germany. The other....the most noted woman in Germany. I watched the ladies show. I sat there....mostly scratching my head....how some notable German women who were big names in the 1980s....were near the bottom, but a couple of German female soccer or ski athletes were way above them. Some big name singers made the list....some didn't.
What the network said at the time was that they had a very comprehensive poll....and it was the best of the best....in terms of results.
Well....it took around five days for ZDF to admit that the original method they described in putting the listing together....failed. Once groups on the internet realized their "star" was up on the poll....they voted more than you'd think. So, somehow....someway...ZDF figured a method to drop the internet results and just one single method with minimal value.
So, both shows were built around this bogus idea, and ran on two separate nights. You can figure that they spent at least half-a-million on each show to get the big-name stars there.....put the production together....add the video and commentary.....and get the production crew lined up. All of that....coming out of TV tax revenue.
ZDF apparently got caught in this lie....and there's some talk now via German news media sites that someone will sue someone over the fib. The best you can say is that it was a good idea in the beginning, but once you suggested to let the public vote via the internet....you were opening up a can of worms. On the men's side.....Adolph Hitler could have easily gotten votes and wound up being the most popular guy in Germany since 1945.....if you allowed polling to take place like suggested.
We are at a point where both ZDF and ADD both have credibility problems. They might still have a good favorability ranking with folks over the age of sixty....but once you get down into the 20-to-40 year old crowd.....it's not exactly positive numbers.
The funny thing now....folks will still quote this poll used to pick the top fifty men or women.....thinking it's all accurate, and it's a totally bogus poll.
It was a poll-like show. One for the most noted man in Germany. The other....the most noted woman in Germany. I watched the ladies show. I sat there....mostly scratching my head....how some notable German women who were big names in the 1980s....were near the bottom, but a couple of German female soccer or ski athletes were way above them. Some big name singers made the list....some didn't.
What the network said at the time was that they had a very comprehensive poll....and it was the best of the best....in terms of results.
Well....it took around five days for ZDF to admit that the original method they described in putting the listing together....failed. Once groups on the internet realized their "star" was up on the poll....they voted more than you'd think. So, somehow....someway...ZDF figured a method to drop the internet results and just one single method with minimal value.
So, both shows were built around this bogus idea, and ran on two separate nights. You can figure that they spent at least half-a-million on each show to get the big-name stars there.....put the production together....add the video and commentary.....and get the production crew lined up. All of that....coming out of TV tax revenue.
ZDF apparently got caught in this lie....and there's some talk now via German news media sites that someone will sue someone over the fib. The best you can say is that it was a good idea in the beginning, but once you suggested to let the public vote via the internet....you were opening up a can of worms. On the men's side.....Adolph Hitler could have easily gotten votes and wound up being the most popular guy in Germany since 1945.....if you allowed polling to take place like suggested.
We are at a point where both ZDF and ADD both have credibility problems. They might still have a good favorability ranking with folks over the age of sixty....but once you get down into the 20-to-40 year old crowd.....it's not exactly positive numbers.
The funny thing now....folks will still quote this poll used to pick the top fifty men or women.....thinking it's all accurate, and it's a totally bogus poll.
The Glass Story
Generally, there are around eight to ten beer glass choices.....and if they really get into this business, you might discover your German associate has twenty different styles. If you drink Bitburger.....he'll want to only use his Bitburger stein. If you drink Falkensteiner Ur-Weiss....it'll be a particular glass. On and on.
Wine falls into the same issue. My best guess is that there are at least thirty different glasses that the public might see on occasion, and the general house stock will include at least six of those wine glasses. Apple wine? There's generally two glasses....one small and one extra-large (at least in my opinion).
Water? It rarely goes past one small glass and one large glass.
Soda? If you ask for a Coke, it's pretty good odds that you will get a Coke glass used. Pepsi? Probably a Pepsi glass. Don't even bring up Mountain Dew (they do sell it, although it's not the same taste).
All of this leads me to the reality of people thinking and obsessed with giving you a beer in the right type container. You could hold your hand up and just say you'll sip the beer straight from the bottle.....which might lead your host to ask "why" and if something is wrong.
The odd thing about this is that barely a hundred years ago....if you went into any village and beer was offered....there was likely just stein mugs offered to drink the localized beer. This obsession with glasses is a recent thing....maybe in the past fifty years when brewers started to deliver special glasses to the local pubs and gasthauses. People picked up on this habit and took it home. Local grocery operations started to market the same glasses and everyone simply picked up a stock of six to eight glasses....thus building up a large bar area of just glasses alone.
So don't be shocked when you notice twelve different steins in your friends bar. He's just a bit picky about how he drinks.
Monday, July 7, 2014
This Spy Business
The weekend gave the news media and political figures time to wrestle with the newest of spy episodes.
What generally came out out via several sources....is that this BND guy (German CIA)....accepted 25,000 Euro to produce roughly 200 documents (numbers go up and down on the quantity here).
Questions? Well....who paid this to the BND guy? Did they just pull out a manilla envelope and hand it to the guy at some coffee shop in Bonn or ice cream shop in Bingen? What did the guy do with the money? Did he declare any for taxes....will he have to pay taxes? If he's sent off to prison....will he sue the CIA later for his pension? What does this all say about the pay scale of various German government workers? Was this BND guy making 20,000 Euro ($27,000 a year) a year after taxes?
Several German political figures said it's time to toss the don't-spy-on-our-friends policy, and start spying on France, the UK, and the US. Course, what they didn't say is that it'd mean they'd have to go out find probably three-hundred million Euro to start a bold new program, and continue to squeeze the German tax revenue budget even more.
Recruiting Germans to be spies? I can imagine this German HR guy.....going through three-hundred resumes to find five folks who could pretend to be spies and sit around some neighborhood in Arlington....collecting data. The BND would have to expand out by double it's present size.....to not only have agents in various countries.....but to have the smart folks residing in Germany who can analyze and put value on the data collected. All of this means....more cost....more taxes.....more oversight....more political arguments over who you spy on (would Russia make the list? Would you put five guys in Switzerland? Would you put fifteen spies into the Vatican?).
This episode with the BND guy was pretty stupid, and it's hard to imagine the value of what was gained (the documents) versus the change in German attitude. All of this will bring up the NSA apparatus in Germany....the current relationship with the German version of the NSA and the US's own NSA.....and probably start some spiral into effect over the US military remaining in Germany. Sooner or later....some magnificent screw-up and bigger spy accusation....will cause the US to remove it's troop structure and leave Germany. It might be five years....it might be twenty....but it's on some timetable and likely to occur.
What next? I would guess that some in-depth review of every single BND guy will occur now, and in twelve months....at least ten more will be found to have dealt with Russian, British, French, and US interests. All of this will come back to suggest that BND guys holding secrets.....are not paid at a sufficient level.....and that a major watchful-eye needs to be mounted to spy on the spies.....daily.
The saying works well here....nothing good of this will come.
What generally came out out via several sources....is that this BND guy (German CIA)....accepted 25,000 Euro to produce roughly 200 documents (numbers go up and down on the quantity here).
Questions? Well....who paid this to the BND guy? Did they just pull out a manilla envelope and hand it to the guy at some coffee shop in Bonn or ice cream shop in Bingen? What did the guy do with the money? Did he declare any for taxes....will he have to pay taxes? If he's sent off to prison....will he sue the CIA later for his pension? What does this all say about the pay scale of various German government workers? Was this BND guy making 20,000 Euro ($27,000 a year) a year after taxes?
Several German political figures said it's time to toss the don't-spy-on-our-friends policy, and start spying on France, the UK, and the US. Course, what they didn't say is that it'd mean they'd have to go out find probably three-hundred million Euro to start a bold new program, and continue to squeeze the German tax revenue budget even more.
Recruiting Germans to be spies? I can imagine this German HR guy.....going through three-hundred resumes to find five folks who could pretend to be spies and sit around some neighborhood in Arlington....collecting data. The BND would have to expand out by double it's present size.....to not only have agents in various countries.....but to have the smart folks residing in Germany who can analyze and put value on the data collected. All of this means....more cost....more taxes.....more oversight....more political arguments over who you spy on (would Russia make the list? Would you put five guys in Switzerland? Would you put fifteen spies into the Vatican?).
This episode with the BND guy was pretty stupid, and it's hard to imagine the value of what was gained (the documents) versus the change in German attitude. All of this will bring up the NSA apparatus in Germany....the current relationship with the German version of the NSA and the US's own NSA.....and probably start some spiral into effect over the US military remaining in Germany. Sooner or later....some magnificent screw-up and bigger spy accusation....will cause the US to remove it's troop structure and leave Germany. It might be five years....it might be twenty....but it's on some timetable and likely to occur.
What next? I would guess that some in-depth review of every single BND guy will occur now, and in twelve months....at least ten more will be found to have dealt with Russian, British, French, and US interests. All of this will come back to suggest that BND guys holding secrets.....are not paid at a sufficient level.....and that a major watchful-eye needs to be mounted to spy on the spies.....daily.
The saying works well here....nothing good of this will come.
The New Maut or Autobahn Tax Concept
The entire new concept for Maut (autobahn tax) will be released today here in Germany. There were several pieces of the concept released yesterday.....so most of what is said today won't shock anyone.
Up until fifteen years ago....Maut didn't exist....then came the trucking experiment where electronic collectors were installed, and folks were charged for usage on the autobahn. Ever since that point....there's been this chatter over the idea of making foreigners going through Germany pay something. The election last year brought this idea to the top of the public's interest, and it's been under a planning stage ever since.
The present idea....spoken via several folks yesterday.....is that you'd have a decal for your window if you were a non-German vehicle....and there would be a tax on that vehicle to get the decal. The surprise is that it would not be a standard deal.....like 100 Euro for a yearly decal as some discussed over the past couple of months.
The new idea is that the type of emissions that the vehicle put out.....would figure into this, and the engine size as well. All of this would mean that you might pay as little as 20 Euro.....or as much as 150 Euro.
The hostility brewing here? Not from within Germany.....it's probably a eighty-percent approval rate for some type of taxation on foreign usage of German highways right now. But the Dutch, the French, the Austrians, and the Italians.....they are fairly unhappy about this. To them.....utilizing this system will simply add onto the bill of transiting Germany. They've all promised to sue in court and take this up the EU chain.
I suspect that the method of taxation fixed into this system.....owes itself to the court issues....and they think that most courts will admit that fairness was designed with the environmental view of things.
What may happen? The EU court system might step in.....to order a suspension of the autobahn Maut once this passes via the Bundestag. A one-year review might stall it.....but I suspect that they will admit that it's fair and folks need to get used to doing it. I might add.....it probably will not deliver the amount of capital that people think, and this might only be stage one.....of a four-stage affair.
Up until fifteen years ago....Maut didn't exist....then came the trucking experiment where electronic collectors were installed, and folks were charged for usage on the autobahn. Ever since that point....there's been this chatter over the idea of making foreigners going through Germany pay something. The election last year brought this idea to the top of the public's interest, and it's been under a planning stage ever since.
The present idea....spoken via several folks yesterday.....is that you'd have a decal for your window if you were a non-German vehicle....and there would be a tax on that vehicle to get the decal. The surprise is that it would not be a standard deal.....like 100 Euro for a yearly decal as some discussed over the past couple of months.
The new idea is that the type of emissions that the vehicle put out.....would figure into this, and the engine size as well. All of this would mean that you might pay as little as 20 Euro.....or as much as 150 Euro.
The hostility brewing here? Not from within Germany.....it's probably a eighty-percent approval rate for some type of taxation on foreign usage of German highways right now. But the Dutch, the French, the Austrians, and the Italians.....they are fairly unhappy about this. To them.....utilizing this system will simply add onto the bill of transiting Germany. They've all promised to sue in court and take this up the EU chain.
I suspect that the method of taxation fixed into this system.....owes itself to the court issues....and they think that most courts will admit that fairness was designed with the environmental view of things.
What may happen? The EU court system might step in.....to order a suspension of the autobahn Maut once this passes via the Bundestag. A one-year review might stall it.....but I suspect that they will admit that it's fair and folks need to get used to doing it. I might add.....it probably will not deliver the amount of capital that people think, and this might only be stage one.....of a four-stage affair.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
The TUV Story
Without the sticker.....the cops can pull you over and it's a stiff fine.
You get a vehicle inspection every two years, and the inspector will note the situation by applying the sticker.
This weekend, it's come out in Wiesbaden (via the local paper, the Wiesbaden Kurier).....that an audit occurred with the local office in Wiesbaden. It was an unannounced audit and revealed that they are 3,500 stickers short.
This got the audit folks all disturbed, and it's turned into an investigation of sorts. What they say is that one single decal on the black market....is worth 300 Euro minimum, and could go as high as 500 Euro.
You find a garage mechanic will will produce fake inspection papers, and a real decal.....for a vehicle that might have major problems (costing several thousand Euro to fix), and you got yourself a pretty good deal. You avoid the repairs and just pay for the decal and fakeness.
I've been over to the office in town. There might be a total of a dozen people who deal with the decals and have access in their safe. You figure a decal delivery to the organization is for a two-year period, and if they were stolen....it had to be in the past year or so. As for previous issues like this? I'm guessing at the end of period of holding.....they get a written order to destroy the remaining decals....sign a paper to that effect....and supposedly shred the remaining decals. Nothing goes back to a central office.....so you could sneak around and dump a hundred here or five-hundred there, and likely never get figured out unless an audit occurred.
As for the value of 3,500 decals? Figure roughly a million. The person in the office who took these....is probably a middle-man, and probably got twenty-five percent of the value on the black-market. So, as the audit investigation progresses.....they will be looking for someone who suddenly had a quarter-million Euro in bank deposits, property purchases, or increased lifestyle within the past two years. Course, they may have been there for two decades, and continually took a thousand decals here and there, and have a fairly good lifestyle accumulated over the years.
Yearly trips to Greece? A new Audi TT? A Rolex watch? High-end shoes? Expensive lifestyle?
Yeah, and they will take you down to the police station to explain these.
An odd story. I'm guessing it'll take a year before they crack the case and get the person to agree to some form of guilt. Getting the decals back? Forget it. The profits from the decal sales? Forget about that because it's likely already spent. Firing the individual is about all you will see on this deal.
The Spy Story
While some news outlets have turned this inside-out and upside-down.....there's only a couple of facts to this week's German spy arrested for spying for the US story.
This guy in question....was supposedly a BND guy....the German version of the CIA. There is some agreement apparently that he'd provided some services to the US CIA folks since 2012.....although no one says what. Pay was figured into this, but you have to wonder how they paid him....cash? And how much?
So, what the CIA asked him to provide which got him tripped up? The Germans have an advisory committee from the Bundestag that is reviewing the whole NSA affair....aka....the story behind Snowden and his files.
The advisory committee....composed of Bundestag members....has a list of things that they want to review. This BND guy got a copy and provided it to the CIA. The Germans say the list was classified, which may be true....but just about any journalist in Germany could have approached several members of the committee and probably gotten half the list from them in a on-the-spot interview and with no hassle.
All of this lead to the Chancellor asking the US ambassador in Berlin to come over and have a chat. It's not a pleasant meeting.....I can imagine. Why would you spy on us, and for what gain is this supposed to achieve? The ambassador may not have even known what was on the CIA's agenda or that this one BND guy was working both sides of the street.
So all of this brings me to three questions: (1) How did they trip up this guy and figure this out (a German mole within the CIA)? (2) Why would the CIA or US government care what the committee is investigating on US NSA gathering (unless the CIA doesn't know the full extent of what the NSA is doing and is prying into this to grasp the full story of their associates)? (3) Finally, in the old days....there was tit-for-tat.....after the US arrested a Russian spy, the Russians would arrest two or three US spies. Will the US now try hard to find a German spy in the US and arrest him....offering to trade for their mole?
For the other sixty-six US spies in Germany.....you might want to double-check your cover story and ensure that the neighbors aren't suspecting anything unusual, and plan for escape across the border into Switzerland. Build up a stock of cigarettes (Marlboro brand is preferred by border crossing guards), wrap up your escape money into twenty-Euro clips and put twenty into your fake Bavarian hat, and only drink pure spring water as you transit the Alps (the beer will slow your escape).
This guy in question....was supposedly a BND guy....the German version of the CIA. There is some agreement apparently that he'd provided some services to the US CIA folks since 2012.....although no one says what. Pay was figured into this, but you have to wonder how they paid him....cash? And how much?
So, what the CIA asked him to provide which got him tripped up? The Germans have an advisory committee from the Bundestag that is reviewing the whole NSA affair....aka....the story behind Snowden and his files.
The advisory committee....composed of Bundestag members....has a list of things that they want to review. This BND guy got a copy and provided it to the CIA. The Germans say the list was classified, which may be true....but just about any journalist in Germany could have approached several members of the committee and probably gotten half the list from them in a on-the-spot interview and with no hassle.
All of this lead to the Chancellor asking the US ambassador in Berlin to come over and have a chat. It's not a pleasant meeting.....I can imagine. Why would you spy on us, and for what gain is this supposed to achieve? The ambassador may not have even known what was on the CIA's agenda or that this one BND guy was working both sides of the street.
So all of this brings me to three questions: (1) How did they trip up this guy and figure this out (a German mole within the CIA)? (2) Why would the CIA or US government care what the committee is investigating on US NSA gathering (unless the CIA doesn't know the full extent of what the NSA is doing and is prying into this to grasp the full story of their associates)? (3) Finally, in the old days....there was tit-for-tat.....after the US arrested a Russian spy, the Russians would arrest two or three US spies. Will the US now try hard to find a German spy in the US and arrest him....offering to trade for their mole?
For the other sixty-six US spies in Germany.....you might want to double-check your cover story and ensure that the neighbors aren't suspecting anything unusual, and plan for escape across the border into Switzerland. Build up a stock of cigarettes (Marlboro brand is preferred by border crossing guards), wrap up your escape money into twenty-Euro clips and put twenty into your fake Bavarian hat, and only drink pure spring water as you transit the Alps (the beer will slow your escape).
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Walter White Has Arrived
In the past twenty-four hours.....Germans kinda woke up and got this small tidbit of news.....one of the lesser of the top fifty SPD political leaders in Berlin....was noted trying to buy 100 grams of meth. In the real world.....it'd be around $24,000. German prices? I'm not sure. He said the hundred grams were for personal use. I kinda have doubts on that story.
What they say (through four different German media versions)....is that the SPD party had to waive his immunity before the cops could issue a search warrant. I'm only guessing here....but this likely took at least six to twelve hours to meet and discuss the legal situation. The guy was likely warned, and the cop searched to find.....mostly nothing. At least, that's the indication by the media.
All of this brings me to several observations. Meth is on the rise in Germany....supposedly riding in from Czech. For a major player in the SPD to be noted messing with the stuff.....possibly being a dealer....it kinds hints that the circle of friends around him or other political players....are using the stuff.
The immunity thing? That's an issue as well. With enough warning.....you can destroy or lose evidence rather easily. It's remarkable that no one in the Bundestag wants to get rid of the immunity deal.
What happens now? All they can generally say is that he tried to purchase a major haul of drugs.....which goes nowhere if he didn't have the meth on him and he didn't take possession of the hundred grams.
The SPD is probably willing to part ways with this guy quickly and warn everyone associated with him to find new friendships.
As for the dealer status? I'm guessing that he would have turned the stuff around in a week or two.....gone back for more.....and has a fair amount of cash somewhere within reach. Hundred thousand Euro? Maybe. The tax revenue guys would be interested in this.....if it weren't so political.
So, Walter White has arrived and doing quiet well in Germany.
What they say (through four different German media versions)....is that the SPD party had to waive his immunity before the cops could issue a search warrant. I'm only guessing here....but this likely took at least six to twelve hours to meet and discuss the legal situation. The guy was likely warned, and the cop searched to find.....mostly nothing. At least, that's the indication by the media.
All of this brings me to several observations. Meth is on the rise in Germany....supposedly riding in from Czech. For a major player in the SPD to be noted messing with the stuff.....possibly being a dealer....it kinds hints that the circle of friends around him or other political players....are using the stuff.
The immunity thing? That's an issue as well. With enough warning.....you can destroy or lose evidence rather easily. It's remarkable that no one in the Bundestag wants to get rid of the immunity deal.
What happens now? All they can generally say is that he tried to purchase a major haul of drugs.....which goes nowhere if he didn't have the meth on him and he didn't take possession of the hundred grams.
The SPD is probably willing to part ways with this guy quickly and warn everyone associated with him to find new friendships.
As for the dealer status? I'm guessing that he would have turned the stuff around in a week or two.....gone back for more.....and has a fair amount of cash somewhere within reach. Hundred thousand Euro? Maybe. The tax revenue guys would be interested in this.....if it weren't so political.
So, Walter White has arrived and doing quiet well in Germany.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)