At some point over the past week, I've come to notice that some German journalists (a small number).....are asking this really tough question....why aren't all of the EU countries pumped up like Germany for more immigrants and refugees? The less-than-thrilled crowd? England, Slovakia, Czech, Greece, and it even has France to some degree. Most of the Eastern European countries can be put on the list as well.
The issues?
Well, you can start with a cost factor. Oddly, German government folks never (never ever is the best term) cite what the true overall cost factor adds up to with each 1,000 refugees/immigrants. No one within the German system cites cop hours on non-cop duty. No one talks about the logistical costs because they've dumped it onto individual states and individual cities. The paperwork? The language and integration classes? The food and medical support? The security involved?
Most countries have a definite spending plan and don't really care to spend more on something that doesn't support the national agenda. They'd rather spend on schools, roads, bridges, and police security.
Then you come to this factor of slums. Most British have this image of an immigration suburb of town being taken by a large group and transformed in a matter of years into a slum-appearance. To be honest though.....you could travel into London and find all Brit-neighborhoods....that look like slums as well. But folks have this opinion that low-income neighborhoods get pushed into a worse position.
Integration? Some nations have the opinion that the new folks just don't fit.....not in two years or ten years time.
The hostility over religion? I believe at least three or four of the EU countries have a negative opinion that Islam will become an issue in their country if they get into the Syrian business. Last week....one nation hinted that they'd be willing to accept X number of Syrians....provided they were Christians. That won't fly well with the German view of things.....but then Germans don't run the EU.
Then you come to this odd factor of experience with immigration.. Some nations have seen remarkably few refugees or immigrants over the past decade or two. They kinda got used to the idea just a hundred here and there every quarter. The idea of 10,000 arriving in one single quarter would make some of these countries go through huge anxiety frustrations.
Then you arrive to the big issue.....who exactly in some country will manage things? Would you just force the problem onto cities or states and pretend it's not a federal problem.....like the way that Berlin handled it? The British would just grin when the Germans explain this tactic, and they'd let you know right away that this attitude won't work on the isle. The Greeks would just start laughing.....because a normal Greek city would hand the refugee a loaf of bread and a tent.
There are twenty-eight members to the EU. On the one far end....is Germany mostly by itself. Somewhere from the mid-point to the German end.....there might be three or four countries with somewhat similar values. The rest of the EU are beyond the middle-point and it's safe to predict that they will talk, and talk, and talk, and talk. Little will be agreed upon.
The fear of right-wing extremism coming out of this situation in two years? I'd take a guess that half of the EU members are in some fear currently and know it's a oncoming situation for elections. For Germany, the national election is still two years away....so they might not be fearing much at this point. But there are individual German state elections....five in 2016, and one of those is Saxony-Anhalt which presently has significant demonstrations occurring against the refugees presently. If the Saxony-Anhalt state election goes negative....it'd likely cause more concern throughout the rest of Germany.
I suspect over the next week....some German journalists will try to tackle this discussion item and try to explain it to the German public. But it'll be impossible to cover.....unless you had a Czech, a Dane, a Brit, or a Pole standing there....and actually doing the talking. And the more they explain their fears....it'll just transform Germans a bit....to ask more and more questions. Right now....it's a trust thing where the journalists and political figures simply say there's no problem. As long as they keep it simple and pure, without more questions.....it'll continue on this trail. But even Germans aren't that stupid.....they will eventually ask why their neighbors won't do it the German-way, and feel kinda shocked when the whole thing is laid out that others don't think that way.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Weekend Fire Story
Most folks say that people from Alabama are fairly creative in disastrous chaos. This past week, we had someone who was fairly clever and creative....in the matter of chaos.
The fire department got called in Frankfurt.....smoke going through some apartment building in the Bornheim suburb. So they arrive, and there is some smoke going on.....out of one particular apartment.
They finally get access and enter and it's a ready unusual event. Some gal had decided that she'd use an actual coconut shell.....as a ash tray. I'd admit....even in Alabama, we haven't reached this stage of ideas yet.
Somewhere in the effort of ashtray usage.....the coconut actually started smoldering and putting out a fair amount of fumes/smoke. It was beyond her control, and that's how the fire department got called (all late on Sunday night).
Luckily, a small bit of water was the requirement, and they didn't ruin the apartment or building with fire axes or massive water. Course, smoke was all around the hallway.....so they brought in some big fan and 'huffed' the air out.
Some doctor got called to treat the gal involved for smoke inhalation. She was probably frustrated over the whole affair and hoping that the neighbors don't ask stupid questions.
Naturally, Germans are fairly curious folks and I'm guessing five or six professors over at the Frankfurt University are busy surveying if coconut fumes are toxic or hazardous. And somewhere down the line.....some idiot German bureaucratic guy will say that a warning has to be affixed to grocery areas to say that coconuts should not be used as ask-trays.
The fire department got called in Frankfurt.....smoke going through some apartment building in the Bornheim suburb. So they arrive, and there is some smoke going on.....out of one particular apartment.
They finally get access and enter and it's a ready unusual event. Some gal had decided that she'd use an actual coconut shell.....as a ash tray. I'd admit....even in Alabama, we haven't reached this stage of ideas yet.
Somewhere in the effort of ashtray usage.....the coconut actually started smoldering and putting out a fair amount of fumes/smoke. It was beyond her control, and that's how the fire department got called (all late on Sunday night).
Luckily, a small bit of water was the requirement, and they didn't ruin the apartment or building with fire axes or massive water. Course, smoke was all around the hallway.....so they brought in some big fan and 'huffed' the air out.
Some doctor got called to treat the gal involved for smoke inhalation. She was probably frustrated over the whole affair and hoping that the neighbors don't ask stupid questions.
Naturally, Germans are fairly curious folks and I'm guessing five or six professors over at the Frankfurt University are busy surveying if coconut fumes are toxic or hazardous. And somewhere down the line.....some idiot German bureaucratic guy will say that a warning has to be affixed to grocery areas to say that coconuts should not be used as ask-trays.
Rhine River Cruise
I did the big Rhine River cruise today....from Wiesbaden-Bebrich to Saint Goarshausen. I'll offer ten bits of advice.
1. The cruise line that comes over to Wiesbaden-Bebrich is KD. You can Google them up, and find that they run around 9AM each day. At the Bebrich Port, you need to be there at 8:45 (it leaves at around 9AM)....to buy tickets and get into place. Note, there really isn't any parking at Bebrich, so calculate about an alternate parking scheme or use public transportation to get there. Rough cost of a one-way ticket to Saint Goarshausen is 35 Euro (adult).
2. On a hot day, bring a bottle of water along. This trip will take three hours to get over to Saint Goarshausen. The KD ship has beverages but you will generally pay more than normal.
3. Weather is always a factor, so know the situation for the whole day prior to getting on the ship. While there is an interior.....it's a major rain episode.....it's not worth a trip.
4. Weekends are the worst period to ride the cruise vessel.....with lots of tourists showing up.
5. There are roughly a dozen places where the vessel will stop and you can get off.....so making a three-hour trip isn't always necessary. And the lesser the distance, the cheaper the trip.
6. A big note about Saint Goarshausen, there are only three or four restaurants in the small town, and I'd generally give them a marginal three-star rating, with two decent coffee shops. As the vessel drops you off.....if you point from that exit to the 11:00 position, that's the railway station in a three-minute walk. Cost for an adult back to Wiesbaden is 12 Euro. My recommendation is for you to bring along a sandwich....have a cup of coffee and slice of cake at the coffee shop....and feast out at the end of the day. The train leaves every thirty minutes and takes about one hour to reach Wiesbaden.
7. Don't bring kids under the age of eight along.....they will get nothing out of the trip and likely be bored. I'd even hesitate bringing any kid under fourteen on such a trip unless they show some enthusiasm.
8. The cruise boat rarely rocks, so don't worry about sea-sickness.
9. Bring sun lotion along if it's a cloudless day.
10. It's windy on the river so dress appropriately....365 days out of the year. Note that they typically only run the vessel from late April to late September.
1. The cruise line that comes over to Wiesbaden-Bebrich is KD. You can Google them up, and find that they run around 9AM each day. At the Bebrich Port, you need to be there at 8:45 (it leaves at around 9AM)....to buy tickets and get into place. Note, there really isn't any parking at Bebrich, so calculate about an alternate parking scheme or use public transportation to get there. Rough cost of a one-way ticket to Saint Goarshausen is 35 Euro (adult).
2. On a hot day, bring a bottle of water along. This trip will take three hours to get over to Saint Goarshausen. The KD ship has beverages but you will generally pay more than normal.
3. Weather is always a factor, so know the situation for the whole day prior to getting on the ship. While there is an interior.....it's a major rain episode.....it's not worth a trip.
4. Weekends are the worst period to ride the cruise vessel.....with lots of tourists showing up.
5. There are roughly a dozen places where the vessel will stop and you can get off.....so making a three-hour trip isn't always necessary. And the lesser the distance, the cheaper the trip.
6. A big note about Saint Goarshausen, there are only three or four restaurants in the small town, and I'd generally give them a marginal three-star rating, with two decent coffee shops. As the vessel drops you off.....if you point from that exit to the 11:00 position, that's the railway station in a three-minute walk. Cost for an adult back to Wiesbaden is 12 Euro. My recommendation is for you to bring along a sandwich....have a cup of coffee and slice of cake at the coffee shop....and feast out at the end of the day. The train leaves every thirty minutes and takes about one hour to reach Wiesbaden.
7. Don't bring kids under the age of eight along.....they will get nothing out of the trip and likely be bored. I'd even hesitate bringing any kid under fourteen on such a trip unless they show some enthusiasm.
8. The cruise boat rarely rocks, so don't worry about sea-sickness.
9. Bring sun lotion along if it's a cloudless day.
10. It's windy on the river so dress appropriately....365 days out of the year. Note that they typically only run the vessel from late April to late September.
Public TV Tax in Germany on the Rise?
There's a discussion going on within the German TV tax empire. Currently, the rate is set for each household for roughly 18 Euro. This gives you ZDF, ARD, the public radio system, and fifteen-odd state networks under ARD.
The discussion centers on increasing costs under ARD's management and operations center. What is generally said is that by 2020.....ARD says that there'll have to be roughly 100 Euro more a year in the mix....figure this out to another eight Euro on top of the present rate.
Presently, there's an expense account of almost a billion Euro involved in this state-run media empire. It's a fair amount of money....at least most Germans believe that.
The public reaction? Nothing much yet because the rate suggestion has barely been discussed in public and it'll be three years before it has to be enacted upon. Generally, Germans grumble over the current rate and there is declining viewership of the public TV situation among the younger population.
German public TV got all peppy around 2009 and felt a new effort to get younger viewers was necessary. So, they invented another network....NEO. NEO was designed originally to be for the 15-to-25 year old group, and was supposed to have more comedies, more US and UK related shows, and relate to younger audiences. Over the first two or three years....NEO was mostly a marginal network with no real public attention. I've noticed in the past year or two that NEO has redefined their viewership to being the 18-to-45 year old group. I guess they've given up on the youth angle and just keeping the network going as best as possible.
At some point, I suspect the board of governors will sit and ask what the public desires, and get a shock as people confirm that they just aren't watching enough public TV to make it worth near thirty Euro a month on taxation.
The discussion centers on increasing costs under ARD's management and operations center. What is generally said is that by 2020.....ARD says that there'll have to be roughly 100 Euro more a year in the mix....figure this out to another eight Euro on top of the present rate.
Presently, there's an expense account of almost a billion Euro involved in this state-run media empire. It's a fair amount of money....at least most Germans believe that.
The public reaction? Nothing much yet because the rate suggestion has barely been discussed in public and it'll be three years before it has to be enacted upon. Generally, Germans grumble over the current rate and there is declining viewership of the public TV situation among the younger population.
German public TV got all peppy around 2009 and felt a new effort to get younger viewers was necessary. So, they invented another network....NEO. NEO was designed originally to be for the 15-to-25 year old group, and was supposed to have more comedies, more US and UK related shows, and relate to younger audiences. Over the first two or three years....NEO was mostly a marginal network with no real public attention. I've noticed in the past year or two that NEO has redefined their viewership to being the 18-to-45 year old group. I guess they've given up on the youth angle and just keeping the network going as best as possible.
At some point, I suspect the board of governors will sit and ask what the public desires, and get a shock as people confirm that they just aren't watching enough public TV to make it worth near thirty Euro a month on taxation.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
The Thalys Effect
If you are an American and traveling around Europe by railway....you are continually surprised at the innovation, the quality of the rail service, and the ease of passing borders. Well....after the Thalys attempted attack (last weekend)....there's going to be some discussions with Interior Ministers from various countries, and you might be surprised how things change in the future.
There's a discussion underway now on more background checks of passengers and baggage on trains. It's hard for me to imagine how they would do this and how they'd ensure the security required to make this work (TSA-like situations would upset everyone).
There's talk of a registered ticket....meaning you have to show your passport or use some form of ID with the on-line purchase of the ticket. Presently, you can walk up to a German machine at any bahnhof and buy a ticket with cash or credit card. It takes roughly sixty seconds to buy such a ticket.....even a long-distance ticket from Frankfurt to Amsterdam via ICE (the high-speed rail service).
As a minimum....the talk indicates that showing your passport might be required at borders in the near future.
What probably will occur? The ministers will come to a meeting and probably agree to designate some routes as "international". With this 'note'.....you will only be able to get on the train if you buy your ticket via their registration system, show an ID and allow some checking of your bags and self while boarding.
How this would work with 500-odd customers showing up at the Frankfurt bahnhof and boarding on a train to Paris or Amsterdam....is beyond me. You'd have to have a protected area (fenced off), with five or six security people at the entrance way to the ramp to board. The train would have to be sanctioned off and everyone checked prior to boarding. A simple arrival and fifteen minutes of people boarding? Impossible. It'd take at least an hour for 500-odd riders to be checked via the registered ticket process and have their bags checked prior to leaving the station.
The Frankfurt station wasn't built to be a security enhanced facility....neither was the new Berlin station, the old Wiesbaden station....or for that matter....any station in Germany.
Even if you got past the idea of doing this for a dozen-odd routes in Europe, what about the 3,000 short-range routes? Like Wiesbaden to Eltville (a twenty-minute ride)? Or Kaiserslautern to Saarbrucken (a twenty-five minute ride)? These would all be unprotected? Yeah. If I were the Jihadist guy....it'd take five minutes to figure out that I need to go on a short-distance train to get my message across instead of the international route train.
The thing is....if you ride the German rail enough....it was designed in the past couple of decades for quick entry and exit. A guy could arrive at some station and find the right ramp in a matter of seconds, and enter a train. Trains would usually pull into major stations and be there for no more than fifteen minutes while people got off or got on. Then they'd pull out.
If you accept all of these changes....why would you not pursue the same logic with bus service as well? Can you imagine three security guys standing there and checking you out while you board the Frankfurt to Amsterdam bus, and it takes sixty minutes to get the passengers loaded and the bags checked?
All of this leads me to this observation. If they go and make up the registered tickets for certain routes, and you end up in some security line at Frankfurt to get to the boarding process....and you have to allow your bags to be viewed by security....why bother traveling by train? You might as well go over to the airport and use some airline. This makes me think that railway usage on international routes will see decreased usage after the rules change, and the political folks asking why fifty percent of railway riders gave up their traditional usage of long-distance trains after they put the rule into effect.
Yeah, it's a mess.
There's a discussion underway now on more background checks of passengers and baggage on trains. It's hard for me to imagine how they would do this and how they'd ensure the security required to make this work (TSA-like situations would upset everyone).
There's talk of a registered ticket....meaning you have to show your passport or use some form of ID with the on-line purchase of the ticket. Presently, you can walk up to a German machine at any bahnhof and buy a ticket with cash or credit card. It takes roughly sixty seconds to buy such a ticket.....even a long-distance ticket from Frankfurt to Amsterdam via ICE (the high-speed rail service).
As a minimum....the talk indicates that showing your passport might be required at borders in the near future.
What probably will occur? The ministers will come to a meeting and probably agree to designate some routes as "international". With this 'note'.....you will only be able to get on the train if you buy your ticket via their registration system, show an ID and allow some checking of your bags and self while boarding.
How this would work with 500-odd customers showing up at the Frankfurt bahnhof and boarding on a train to Paris or Amsterdam....is beyond me. You'd have to have a protected area (fenced off), with five or six security people at the entrance way to the ramp to board. The train would have to be sanctioned off and everyone checked prior to boarding. A simple arrival and fifteen minutes of people boarding? Impossible. It'd take at least an hour for 500-odd riders to be checked via the registered ticket process and have their bags checked prior to leaving the station.
The Frankfurt station wasn't built to be a security enhanced facility....neither was the new Berlin station, the old Wiesbaden station....or for that matter....any station in Germany.
Even if you got past the idea of doing this for a dozen-odd routes in Europe, what about the 3,000 short-range routes? Like Wiesbaden to Eltville (a twenty-minute ride)? Or Kaiserslautern to Saarbrucken (a twenty-five minute ride)? These would all be unprotected? Yeah. If I were the Jihadist guy....it'd take five minutes to figure out that I need to go on a short-distance train to get my message across instead of the international route train.
The thing is....if you ride the German rail enough....it was designed in the past couple of decades for quick entry and exit. A guy could arrive at some station and find the right ramp in a matter of seconds, and enter a train. Trains would usually pull into major stations and be there for no more than fifteen minutes while people got off or got on. Then they'd pull out.
If you accept all of these changes....why would you not pursue the same logic with bus service as well? Can you imagine three security guys standing there and checking you out while you board the Frankfurt to Amsterdam bus, and it takes sixty minutes to get the passengers loaded and the bags checked?
All of this leads me to this observation. If they go and make up the registered tickets for certain routes, and you end up in some security line at Frankfurt to get to the boarding process....and you have to allow your bags to be viewed by security....why bother traveling by train? You might as well go over to the airport and use some airline. This makes me think that railway usage on international routes will see decreased usage after the rules change, and the political folks asking why fifty percent of railway riders gave up their traditional usage of long-distance trains after they put the rule into effect.
Yeah, it's a mess.
9-11, Bush, Nukes, and the Steiner?
A German publication has come out with some big story over Bush II, 9-11, and the possible use of nuclear weapons in the Afghanistan War.
It's a curious piece, tied to one German who is telling the story. So far, it hasn't been picked up and carried internationally much.....because there are questions over the whole episode.
Micheal Steiner was serving as an adviser to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 2001. Steiner says that after 11 September, in his discussions with the US (he never cites who said this) that plans were laid out and the option of nuclear weapons was on the table (it was not removed as an option).
Steiner comes back to brief Schroeder and he's said to be worried that the US will overreact.....going to this option first.
All of this in some fashion led to the 2003 frustrations between Schoreder's government and the US.
Who else confirmed the story? So far....no one. That's the odd part of the story.
Who is Steiner? Well....in the early eighties as a lawyer, he came up to get within the German foreign service group. He did some impressive work in Prague in 1989, and was noted as a four-star player within the German government. Shortly after being noted.....he was picked up to be a special adviser to Chancellor Schroeder.
He was apparently serving as a 'go-between' with the US after 9-11 and was advised of various plans in the works.
Then, oddly as you come to the end of 2001....Steiner is in Moscow for some situation and gets himself into the "caviar affair" (as referred to by the German press). From what one can read from this episode.....he'd come into Moscow and had a German military officer attending to his situation....and at some point demanded the military officer go and fetch him some caviar. It was in some insulting way....probably in a public setting with the Russians in attendance....and things went downhill fast.
This German military officer got with two associates who'd also been treated in the same fashion....they filed a report, and in a matter of days....Steiner was having to defend himself back in Berlin.
The nickname given to Steiner? That's an odd thing because he was already getting noticed a fair amount, and he was called the "extra foreign minister". Note, he wasn't the German foreign minister so it kinda begs how Germany's foreign minister at the time (Fischer) felt of him. British press in this time period of 2001....noted that there was a 'mini-war' (the Guardian's words, not mine) going on between Fischer and Steiner. Fischer apparently felt Steiner was undermining the efforts of the German Foreign Ministry.
Steiner, after resigning, ended up within days....working for the UN. Based on Wikipedia....he kinda stayed with them for most of the next decade....coming back in 2010 to work for the German Foreign Ministry again. This would have occurred under the joint government of CDU/CSU/FDP, with the Foreign Ministry run by FDP's Guido Westerwelle, not the SPD side as some might suspect.
In March of 2012, Steiner was finally placed as the German ambassador to India, and based on various news reports.....Steiner will be retiring sometime this year.
So, the odds of the Bush-nuke war in Afghanistan being true? On a given day.....various military plans are written and drafted. You go through versions. So when someone says 'everything is on the table'....it kinda means that the first version of the plan is totally open and nothing has been shut-off or cleared from the table yet.
You could sit and ponder upon this and ask.....if you did get through all the stages of planning and the nuke attack was still option one.....what exactly would you nuke in Afghanistan? Underground bunkers? There are none. Cave complexes? You could do the same damage with regular bombs. Military industrial sites? There are none. Communications sites? There might be a couple of telephone network or satellite network sites.....but a dozen-odd regular bombs would do all the damage required.
It's a comical thing if you sit and think about this long enough. Other than dropping some nuke in the middle of the Afghan mountains to just announce yourself and your intentions....means nothing and has no plus-side. It's not Japan where you needed to cease a war. In Afghanistan....there was no real authority and situated government to react to such a situation.
It's been almost fifteen years since 9-11 and there's just not much new on the event. The 10,000 details have been told over and over. So the marginal discussion of this possible new item is worth five minutes of 'thrills'. Then you dig into this and kinda wonder why no one else is part of the story, and how the 'told story' works with reality. Why didn't Fischer relate the story? Why not Schroeder?
In the end....you have to wonder if the story related is a hundred-percent true.....fifty-percent true....or ten-percent true. Just because the German press prints something....doesn't exactly make it a hundred-percent factual. Sorry if I'm skeptical....but there's been too many bogus stories with minor elements of truth built into them, and you get to being constantly skeptical.
It's a curious piece, tied to one German who is telling the story. So far, it hasn't been picked up and carried internationally much.....because there are questions over the whole episode.
Micheal Steiner was serving as an adviser to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 2001. Steiner says that after 11 September, in his discussions with the US (he never cites who said this) that plans were laid out and the option of nuclear weapons was on the table (it was not removed as an option).
Steiner comes back to brief Schroeder and he's said to be worried that the US will overreact.....going to this option first.
All of this in some fashion led to the 2003 frustrations between Schoreder's government and the US.
Who else confirmed the story? So far....no one. That's the odd part of the story.
Who is Steiner? Well....in the early eighties as a lawyer, he came up to get within the German foreign service group. He did some impressive work in Prague in 1989, and was noted as a four-star player within the German government. Shortly after being noted.....he was picked up to be a special adviser to Chancellor Schroeder.
He was apparently serving as a 'go-between' with the US after 9-11 and was advised of various plans in the works.
Then, oddly as you come to the end of 2001....Steiner is in Moscow for some situation and gets himself into the "caviar affair" (as referred to by the German press). From what one can read from this episode.....he'd come into Moscow and had a German military officer attending to his situation....and at some point demanded the military officer go and fetch him some caviar. It was in some insulting way....probably in a public setting with the Russians in attendance....and things went downhill fast.
This German military officer got with two associates who'd also been treated in the same fashion....they filed a report, and in a matter of days....Steiner was having to defend himself back in Berlin.
The nickname given to Steiner? That's an odd thing because he was already getting noticed a fair amount, and he was called the "extra foreign minister". Note, he wasn't the German foreign minister so it kinda begs how Germany's foreign minister at the time (Fischer) felt of him. British press in this time period of 2001....noted that there was a 'mini-war' (the Guardian's words, not mine) going on between Fischer and Steiner. Fischer apparently felt Steiner was undermining the efforts of the German Foreign Ministry.
Steiner, after resigning, ended up within days....working for the UN. Based on Wikipedia....he kinda stayed with them for most of the next decade....coming back in 2010 to work for the German Foreign Ministry again. This would have occurred under the joint government of CDU/CSU/FDP, with the Foreign Ministry run by FDP's Guido Westerwelle, not the SPD side as some might suspect.
In March of 2012, Steiner was finally placed as the German ambassador to India, and based on various news reports.....Steiner will be retiring sometime this year.
So, the odds of the Bush-nuke war in Afghanistan being true? On a given day.....various military plans are written and drafted. You go through versions. So when someone says 'everything is on the table'....it kinda means that the first version of the plan is totally open and nothing has been shut-off or cleared from the table yet.
You could sit and ponder upon this and ask.....if you did get through all the stages of planning and the nuke attack was still option one.....what exactly would you nuke in Afghanistan? Underground bunkers? There are none. Cave complexes? You could do the same damage with regular bombs. Military industrial sites? There are none. Communications sites? There might be a couple of telephone network or satellite network sites.....but a dozen-odd regular bombs would do all the damage required.
It's a comical thing if you sit and think about this long enough. Other than dropping some nuke in the middle of the Afghan mountains to just announce yourself and your intentions....means nothing and has no plus-side. It's not Japan where you needed to cease a war. In Afghanistan....there was no real authority and situated government to react to such a situation.
It's been almost fifteen years since 9-11 and there's just not much new on the event. The 10,000 details have been told over and over. So the marginal discussion of this possible new item is worth five minutes of 'thrills'. Then you dig into this and kinda wonder why no one else is part of the story, and how the 'told story' works with reality. Why didn't Fischer relate the story? Why not Schroeder?
In the end....you have to wonder if the story related is a hundred-percent true.....fifty-percent true....or ten-percent true. Just because the German press prints something....doesn't exactly make it a hundred-percent factual. Sorry if I'm skeptical....but there's been too many bogus stories with minor elements of truth built into them, and you get to being constantly skeptical.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Soccer Day
I spent part of the afternoon over at Mainz, in the Coface Arena to watch a soccer game....in the VIP suite.
It was an interesting experience. You arrive in the VIP parking lot....within 300 ft of the front door. You show your pass and take an elevator up to the top floor. There's a big suite there, which my wife's boss had for the game.
Free beer, wine, soda and water. Free food. All of this starts 90 minutes prior to the game and continues for roughly 60 minutes after the game. I don't know the cost but I have to admit it was a five-star deal.
The only negative from the event came from watching the parking lot empty out at the conclusion of the game. Luckily, twenty-thousand people walked in and weren't part of the parking lot episode. But there's only a single lane from the arena out to the main road. It took forever for cars to empty out of the arena parking lot.
Coface Arnea is a new soccer stadium.....built in 2011 for roughly sixty-odd million Euro. It's on the far south end of Mainz and fairly near the autobahn (maybe five minutes away). I have to admit, it's built for the viewers and is rather simple to get into and out of the arena itself.
It was an interesting experience. You arrive in the VIP parking lot....within 300 ft of the front door. You show your pass and take an elevator up to the top floor. There's a big suite there, which my wife's boss had for the game.
Free beer, wine, soda and water. Free food. All of this starts 90 minutes prior to the game and continues for roughly 60 minutes after the game. I don't know the cost but I have to admit it was a five-star deal.
The only negative from the event came from watching the parking lot empty out at the conclusion of the game. Luckily, twenty-thousand people walked in and weren't part of the parking lot episode. But there's only a single lane from the arena out to the main road. It took forever for cars to empty out of the arena parking lot.
Coface Arnea is a new soccer stadium.....built in 2011 for roughly sixty-odd million Euro. It's on the far south end of Mainz and fairly near the autobahn (maybe five minutes away). I have to admit, it's built for the viewers and is rather simple to get into and out of the arena itself.
The 80-20 Discussion
This past week, I noted that the public-run network here in Germany....ZDF....put one of their political chat shows into a polling situation over immigration and the favorability rating. "Politbarometer" typically does only political surveys and notes where where political parties stand or certain key issues reside with the public. According to the commentary, they went out to roughly 2,000 people and the come-back was eighty-percent of the German nation area friendly toward immigration and refugees, with twenty-percent negative with the current situation.
Typically, at least with politics....Politbarometer is fairly close when elections occur. If they say the SPD will get X-number of votes in a national election....it's usually within a point of being correct. So they rarely screw up on surveys.
In this case? I might be curious how they worded the questions, but maybe they are correct.
The problem is that you continually see the journalists from both public-run networks (ARD and ZDF) on a pro-refugee and pro-immigration 'rant'. I hate to use the word "cheer-leader", but it fits into their acting job for the past couple of months.
So, are there eighty percent in favor? I would have some doubts. Most people are asking more questions, and there's element of the nation wondering where exactly the momentum starts to decrease. While the gov't now talks continually of roughly 800,000 to 850,000 refugees and immigrants coming in 2015, the realistic amount is closer to one-million (the forbidden number to mention if you work for the German gov't). What of 2016? The news media and political players absolutely refuse to allow this to come up in public discussion. Another one million in 2016? It's possible.
This might explain the urgent nature of this big EU meeting in October and why they want some big changes. Getting other EU members to accept more immigrants? Unless Germany is going to "pay" them something, I don't see many EU members wanting to take on more immigrants.
My gut feeling is that it's closer to a fifty-fifty mix on the immigration and refugee situation in Germany. The Politbarometer survey might have been cherry-picking on their questions and led some people to different conclusion.
Why all this matters? The fall of 2017 is the next national election, and if it's based on the refugee-immigration episode as the top subject....it'll invite a major change in voting patterns.
Typically, at least with politics....Politbarometer is fairly close when elections occur. If they say the SPD will get X-number of votes in a national election....it's usually within a point of being correct. So they rarely screw up on surveys.
In this case? I might be curious how they worded the questions, but maybe they are correct.
The problem is that you continually see the journalists from both public-run networks (ARD and ZDF) on a pro-refugee and pro-immigration 'rant'. I hate to use the word "cheer-leader", but it fits into their acting job for the past couple of months.
So, are there eighty percent in favor? I would have some doubts. Most people are asking more questions, and there's element of the nation wondering where exactly the momentum starts to decrease. While the gov't now talks continually of roughly 800,000 to 850,000 refugees and immigrants coming in 2015, the realistic amount is closer to one-million (the forbidden number to mention if you work for the German gov't). What of 2016? The news media and political players absolutely refuse to allow this to come up in public discussion. Another one million in 2016? It's possible.
This might explain the urgent nature of this big EU meeting in October and why they want some big changes. Getting other EU members to accept more immigrants? Unless Germany is going to "pay" them something, I don't see many EU members wanting to take on more immigrants.
My gut feeling is that it's closer to a fifty-fifty mix on the immigration and refugee situation in Germany. The Politbarometer survey might have been cherry-picking on their questions and led some people to different conclusion.
Why all this matters? The fall of 2017 is the next national election, and if it's based on the refugee-immigration episode as the top subject....it'll invite a major change in voting patterns.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
The Fake Syrian Episode
You could have predicted this.
Focus (the German news magazine) put up some investigative journalism and came to realize that as the refugees have developed social networks and their own information....they've all come to realize that the EU has given favorite status to the Syrians. Once you get to Greece.....Syrians get processed faster and allowed to proceed without any interference. Well...there are numerous efforts now by the non-Syrians (Pakistani, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc).....to pretend to be Syrian.
Focus didn't come out and say anything about fake Syrian passports, but my guess is that it's part of the routine as well.
How many? Unknown.
It doesn't take an idiot to see the time difference and favorite status at work. It'll mean more and more people show up in Europe and Germany.....claiming to be Syrian but they simply aren't Syrian.
A big deal? I'm not sure. If you had 200,000 people a year transit this 'path' to Germany who were claiming they were Syrian but they weren't.....it'd eventually get figured out and there'd be some type of consequence. If you lie on your immigration form, that's justifiable reason to deny you permanent status. You could even be kicked out of Germany if you lied on the refugee form.
If this works well enough.....the African folks might also get into the fake deal and start trying to claim they were Syrian. Eventually, down the line in three or four years.....Germany would wake up and realize they have ten million refugees or immigrates who are claiming Syrian status, and staying in Germany. There were only 22 million Syrians prior to the war, so the math and population number will eventually get figured out.
Just another odd problem that you'd never imagine.
Focus (the German news magazine) put up some investigative journalism and came to realize that as the refugees have developed social networks and their own information....they've all come to realize that the EU has given favorite status to the Syrians. Once you get to Greece.....Syrians get processed faster and allowed to proceed without any interference. Well...there are numerous efforts now by the non-Syrians (Pakistani, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc).....to pretend to be Syrian.
Focus didn't come out and say anything about fake Syrian passports, but my guess is that it's part of the routine as well.
How many? Unknown.
It doesn't take an idiot to see the time difference and favorite status at work. It'll mean more and more people show up in Europe and Germany.....claiming to be Syrian but they simply aren't Syrian.
A big deal? I'm not sure. If you had 200,000 people a year transit this 'path' to Germany who were claiming they were Syrian but they weren't.....it'd eventually get figured out and there'd be some type of consequence. If you lie on your immigration form, that's justifiable reason to deny you permanent status. You could even be kicked out of Germany if you lied on the refugee form.
If this works well enough.....the African folks might also get into the fake deal and start trying to claim they were Syrian. Eventually, down the line in three or four years.....Germany would wake up and realize they have ten million refugees or immigrates who are claiming Syrian status, and staying in Germany. There were only 22 million Syrians prior to the war, so the math and population number will eventually get figured out.
Just another odd problem that you'd never imagine.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Chancellor's Trip to Marxloh?
I sat and watched German news last night (ARD and ZDF). The Chancellor ended up for an hour or two in Marxloh (a burb of Duisburg). Duisburg is a somewhat significant town up in north Germany. The showing? There's major hostility in the local area about the foreigners in the town. Duisburg is one of those towns with the label of 'no-go'.
My general impression was that Merkel wanted to placate the locals and let them know that Duisburg was on map and being viewed by Berliln.
There are two odd factors with the Marxloh area which the news folks put up on the screen. First, almost half of the town (nearly 50-percent) was foreign-resident. That's an awful lot. Second, there are roughly 90-odd countries represented in the Marxloh area. That....is a huge number.
Marxloh is basically a four mile by two mile chunk of land. It's hard to imagine that many nationalities based in the suburban area. Communication and integration would fall into play whenever you pass through the area.
I've looked around for examples of communities with fifty percent immigrants.....first-generation. Not just in Germany, but to include, and the world itself. Frankly, it's hard to find such an example. If you go to a major city like Phoenix, it's possible to find maybe some neighborhoods where it's 100-percent immigrant, but when you talk about the whole city.....the number drops way down.
My guess is that the Merkel appearance gave some positive points for the Berlin-crowd and maybe got some minor attention in Duisburg, but that just drifts off after twenty-four hours.
What no one would explain and one would be curious about.....how did Marxloh ever become this over-flowing melting pot? Where did this start and how did the government not envision this problem?
My general impression was that Merkel wanted to placate the locals and let them know that Duisburg was on map and being viewed by Berliln.
There are two odd factors with the Marxloh area which the news folks put up on the screen. First, almost half of the town (nearly 50-percent) was foreign-resident. That's an awful lot. Second, there are roughly 90-odd countries represented in the Marxloh area. That....is a huge number.
Marxloh is basically a four mile by two mile chunk of land. It's hard to imagine that many nationalities based in the suburban area. Communication and integration would fall into play whenever you pass through the area.
I've looked around for examples of communities with fifty percent immigrants.....first-generation. Not just in Germany, but to include, and the world itself. Frankly, it's hard to find such an example. If you go to a major city like Phoenix, it's possible to find maybe some neighborhoods where it's 100-percent immigrant, but when you talk about the whole city.....the number drops way down.
My guess is that the Merkel appearance gave some positive points for the Berlin-crowd and maybe got some minor attention in Duisburg, but that just drifts off after twenty-four hours.
What no one would explain and one would be curious about.....how did Marxloh ever become this over-flowing melting pot? Where did this start and how did the government not envision this problem?
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
The Problem With the Ten Points
Journalists came out today with the ten points that Germany lists for the big meeting in roughly eight weeks. They want the EU to discuss the ten points and come to some mutual agreement. After reviewing the ten points, I'd say it's next to impossible for most of the ten to be agreed upon.
1. Establish humane conditions for refugees across the EU. This means some central authority would have to exist....involved in inspecting and raising 'heck' with camp operations and standards that might differ from country to country. Germany and France might easily agree to this, but it's hard to see Greece or Italy agreeing. Providing drinking water, some type of shelter, and basic food might work. But then someone will disagree about a tent being acceptable as a facility. Tents usage in winter-time? Another problem area. Even an old barracks converted over to refugee usage.....might not be acceptable. Heated food only once a day? Someone might say something negative about that.
2. Create a common European standard of asylum. The Germans want a phrase or standard that says these conditions allow a person to come and stay....and these conditions will be a reason to deny a person asylum. They want each country to accept that standard. I have strong doubts that it'll work beyond three or four countries. Everyone will have their own version of the standard and some might say this standard will work, but once you reach a magic number of asylum seekers....all bets are off.
3. Distribute refugees evenly across Europe. This is a catch-phrase for the Germans. Basically, it'd create a big problem for probably over seventy-percent of the refugees coming in. If you had your heart set ONLY on Germany, and you got a computer sheet saying you have to go into Poland, immigrate there and stay at least three years minimum.....you might be upset by this and want to refuse the order. If all EU players do the same standard on this.....it might disturb a lot of people. The odds of the EU countries agreeing? They'd have to agree to take tens of thousands possibly, and I don't that being acceptable across the board.
4. A standard EU approach to border control. Some countries are disturbed about the way that some southern neighbors are handling the border issue. Spain, Austria, Greece, and others.....have a problem. I see almost no agreement occurring on this border issue.
5. Assist members states taking the pointed end of the asylum seekers. This is mostly a German comment dealing with Greece and Italy. Both need additional help. Beyond just handing them cash....it's hard to say how this would work.
6. Decrease loss of life in the Mediterranean Sea. The news media has pumped up this issue. I'd say on German nightly news.....it's a feature for at least five nights a week minimum. How to increase the safety? You'd basically have to place a ferry down in Libya and Lebanon.....and just carry the people across yourself....say two or three thousand a day. I don't see anyone coming to the table and having some fancy idea on how to fix the problem. It's mostly unsolvable.
7. Standards of deportation for those who failed asylum applications. What the Germans would like is a simplified EU agreement that might allow for quick deportation. If you listed five conditions where you would fail the asylum application, in a matter of 72-hours....then you'd be put on the bus or plane and quickly moved out....the Germans might be happy with that idea. I'm sure no one will agree on an extremely short review period, but maybe this could occur within ten to twenty days and satisfy the bulk of countries.
8. Define safe countries of origin. What Germany wants is a listing that says these countries are 'safe' and these are 'unsafe'. Once defined and agreed upon.....a blitz-like denial could easily be put in place and some folks might find themselves having wasted sixteen days walking up to Germany.....only to discover it take fourteen hours to hustle them back to Bosnia. The odds of this being agreed upon? The bulk might agree to three or four countries on the safe list.....beyond that....I don't think it'll come to any real conclusion. Added to this....fake passports might suddenly become a fad for 'safe' folks to acquire and announce while they seem to speak Albanian.....they are Iraqi.
9. A new immigration standard. It's difficult to say what this really means. Perhaps more explanation on integration.....maybe more on how many people a year could be accepted....maybe some details on how to deny people with suspected problem backgrounds....but you don't know. In computer language, you usually create an area called "*.*" to handle all the oddball problems and this might fall into that category.
10. Challenge the flight problem in both Africa and the Mideast. Easily said than done. Stability in either region.....how? You'd have to use military strength and that won't happen. Bribing the officals to be kind? I don't see that happening. This listed item is a dead-end.
I do agree, there needed to be central meeting of the EU states over this whole issue. But the ten points will be next to impossible to find solutions to....that are agreeable across the spectrum. The safe origins point might be the only item which is quickly discussed and quickly agreed upon by most countries....but the list might be awful short on 'safe' and thus making the Germans unhappy in the end.
1. Establish humane conditions for refugees across the EU. This means some central authority would have to exist....involved in inspecting and raising 'heck' with camp operations and standards that might differ from country to country. Germany and France might easily agree to this, but it's hard to see Greece or Italy agreeing. Providing drinking water, some type of shelter, and basic food might work. But then someone will disagree about a tent being acceptable as a facility. Tents usage in winter-time? Another problem area. Even an old barracks converted over to refugee usage.....might not be acceptable. Heated food only once a day? Someone might say something negative about that.
2. Create a common European standard of asylum. The Germans want a phrase or standard that says these conditions allow a person to come and stay....and these conditions will be a reason to deny a person asylum. They want each country to accept that standard. I have strong doubts that it'll work beyond three or four countries. Everyone will have their own version of the standard and some might say this standard will work, but once you reach a magic number of asylum seekers....all bets are off.
3. Distribute refugees evenly across Europe. This is a catch-phrase for the Germans. Basically, it'd create a big problem for probably over seventy-percent of the refugees coming in. If you had your heart set ONLY on Germany, and you got a computer sheet saying you have to go into Poland, immigrate there and stay at least three years minimum.....you might be upset by this and want to refuse the order. If all EU players do the same standard on this.....it might disturb a lot of people. The odds of the EU countries agreeing? They'd have to agree to take tens of thousands possibly, and I don't that being acceptable across the board.
4. A standard EU approach to border control. Some countries are disturbed about the way that some southern neighbors are handling the border issue. Spain, Austria, Greece, and others.....have a problem. I see almost no agreement occurring on this border issue.
5. Assist members states taking the pointed end of the asylum seekers. This is mostly a German comment dealing with Greece and Italy. Both need additional help. Beyond just handing them cash....it's hard to say how this would work.
6. Decrease loss of life in the Mediterranean Sea. The news media has pumped up this issue. I'd say on German nightly news.....it's a feature for at least five nights a week minimum. How to increase the safety? You'd basically have to place a ferry down in Libya and Lebanon.....and just carry the people across yourself....say two or three thousand a day. I don't see anyone coming to the table and having some fancy idea on how to fix the problem. It's mostly unsolvable.
7. Standards of deportation for those who failed asylum applications. What the Germans would like is a simplified EU agreement that might allow for quick deportation. If you listed five conditions where you would fail the asylum application, in a matter of 72-hours....then you'd be put on the bus or plane and quickly moved out....the Germans might be happy with that idea. I'm sure no one will agree on an extremely short review period, but maybe this could occur within ten to twenty days and satisfy the bulk of countries.
8. Define safe countries of origin. What Germany wants is a listing that says these countries are 'safe' and these are 'unsafe'. Once defined and agreed upon.....a blitz-like denial could easily be put in place and some folks might find themselves having wasted sixteen days walking up to Germany.....only to discover it take fourteen hours to hustle them back to Bosnia. The odds of this being agreed upon? The bulk might agree to three or four countries on the safe list.....beyond that....I don't think it'll come to any real conclusion. Added to this....fake passports might suddenly become a fad for 'safe' folks to acquire and announce while they seem to speak Albanian.....they are Iraqi.
9. A new immigration standard. It's difficult to say what this really means. Perhaps more explanation on integration.....maybe more on how many people a year could be accepted....maybe some details on how to deny people with suspected problem backgrounds....but you don't know. In computer language, you usually create an area called "*.*" to handle all the oddball problems and this might fall into that category.
10. Challenge the flight problem in both Africa and the Mideast. Easily said than done. Stability in either region.....how? You'd have to use military strength and that won't happen. Bribing the officals to be kind? I don't see that happening. This listed item is a dead-end.
I do agree, there needed to be central meeting of the EU states over this whole issue. But the ten points will be next to impossible to find solutions to....that are agreeable across the spectrum. The safe origins point might be the only item which is quickly discussed and quickly agreed upon by most countries....but the list might be awful short on 'safe' and thus making the Germans unhappy in the end.
The French Award Story
Last Friday, five days ago....three Americans took down a Jihadist guy on a train to Paris. It's fairly big news in Europe and people are amazed of the event.
Well....I sat last night and watched German network news. They had a 90-second piece over what happened in Paris on Monday morning. The French are pretty quick about recognizing bravery, grit and valor. So they wrapped up a little ceremony for the three guys and gave them each the French Legion of Honor by French President Hollande. It basically took less than forty-eight hours to determine it was necessary.....write up the words....and get the three guys to Paris for the ceremony.
One of the three guys is a active duty Air Force airman. A second guy is a reservist in the Air Force National Guard.
Having seen the reality of how medals work in the US.....I'm guessing that each will get some Air Force medal for their heroic action, but it'll be anywhere from three to six months before it gets awarded.
Some US Air Force Captain will sit down and interview the guys and get the words, and spend three weeks writing some type of draft version. Then six guys will whip out their pens and draft more. Then it'll go to some definite wording and get sent to the first approving guy. Then some Colonel will do his drafting on it. And then some general will draft on it. And finally it'll hit the Pentagon where six different folks will want to draft on it.
It's funny how things work. The French guys probably spent no more than sixty minutes of writing up the simplified wording, then mentioned something along the lines of fearlessness, mettle, daring and spirit. The French President looked it over and probably said that was fine, and that was the end of the discussion.
The truth of the matter is that you can sum up the five-minute in roughly forty words....then end it with summation of....when audacity mattered....these men were up for the job.
Well....I sat last night and watched German network news. They had a 90-second piece over what happened in Paris on Monday morning. The French are pretty quick about recognizing bravery, grit and valor. So they wrapped up a little ceremony for the three guys and gave them each the French Legion of Honor by French President Hollande. It basically took less than forty-eight hours to determine it was necessary.....write up the words....and get the three guys to Paris for the ceremony.
One of the three guys is a active duty Air Force airman. A second guy is a reservist in the Air Force National Guard.
Having seen the reality of how medals work in the US.....I'm guessing that each will get some Air Force medal for their heroic action, but it'll be anywhere from three to six months before it gets awarded.
Some US Air Force Captain will sit down and interview the guys and get the words, and spend three weeks writing some type of draft version. Then six guys will whip out their pens and draft more. Then it'll go to some definite wording and get sent to the first approving guy. Then some Colonel will do his drafting on it. And then some general will draft on it. And finally it'll hit the Pentagon where six different folks will want to draft on it.
It's funny how things work. The French guys probably spent no more than sixty minutes of writing up the simplified wording, then mentioned something along the lines of fearlessness, mettle, daring and spirit. The French President looked it over and probably said that was fine, and that was the end of the discussion.
The truth of the matter is that you can sum up the five-minute in roughly forty words....then end it with summation of....when audacity mattered....these men were up for the job.
GEZ and the Asylum Seekers
Today, the story came out via Bild (a German newspaper) that registered asylum seekers/immigrants in some transitory status....got fee-letters from GEZ (the TV tax folks in Germany).
The GEZ folks wanted their quarterly Euro payment for the required TV tax.
What can generally be said is that GEZ is using a computerized program to analyze residents and non-payment of the TV tax now. If some guy suddenly appears and several months go by with no payment....the GEZ folks will send out a warning letter.
As for the refugees? I'm guessing they were really happy to get some letter in their mailbox, and upon opening it and then conferring with their social helper.....they were a bit disgruntled about this TV tax deal. Fifty Euro for a lot of these people.....is a significant amount of money. In the old country.....they probably never paid for TV. I would imagine the social helper sat there and had to spend at least twenty minutes explaining the TV tax and GEZ.....over and over to different people who got the letter.
What happens? Well....there is an exemption letter that can be sent and for a period of time.....these asylum seeker/refugees will be off the GEZ list.. But one day.....when they are employed and fully in the system.....GEZ will send the letter and there is no more exemption. Reality will hit. Two-hundred-odd Euro a year.....toward the TV tax.
Slowly but surely.....the Germans will make each refugee eventually have a sour taste in their mouth over this tax business.
The GEZ folks wanted their quarterly Euro payment for the required TV tax.
What can generally be said is that GEZ is using a computerized program to analyze residents and non-payment of the TV tax now. If some guy suddenly appears and several months go by with no payment....the GEZ folks will send out a warning letter.
As for the refugees? I'm guessing they were really happy to get some letter in their mailbox, and upon opening it and then conferring with their social helper.....they were a bit disgruntled about this TV tax deal. Fifty Euro for a lot of these people.....is a significant amount of money. In the old country.....they probably never paid for TV. I would imagine the social helper sat there and had to spend at least twenty minutes explaining the TV tax and GEZ.....over and over to different people who got the letter.
What happens? Well....there is an exemption letter that can be sent and for a period of time.....these asylum seeker/refugees will be off the GEZ list.. But one day.....when they are employed and fully in the system.....GEZ will send the letter and there is no more exemption. Reality will hit. Two-hundred-odd Euro a year.....toward the TV tax.
Slowly but surely.....the Germans will make each refugee eventually have a sour taste in their mouth over this tax business.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
The Bottle-Hunter Story
About a week ago....they started up a seasonal TV show here in Germany on the commercial network. The show was a special deal of 'Big Brother', where you toss a number of folks into some enclosed area and just watch them talk and deal with stress. This was a different version....where all of the players were promi-type entertainers....some from the last decade....some from the 1990s....and some from the 1980s.
I'll be the first to admit that I dislike these shows and rarely if ever watch them. That said....it is summer season in Germany and the TV offerings from the twenty-odd channels are lousy. Reruns from the entire last decade, cop shows from Denmark or Sweden, and old cowboy westerns are the theme for roughly two months. It's the normal average way that German TV functions in the summer months.
The management folks....doesn't matter if it's public-run or commercially-run....all agree that half the number of viewers are present and it's not worth the effort to run major draws during this period.
That said.....SAT1 ran with this promi Big Brother show....hoping to get younger viewers and more attention.
Well....last night was the evening of 'confessions', and one of the older gals on the show....Desiree Nick.....delivered her piece.
She's been a bottle-hunter....one of those people who walk the streets of a city who looks around for pfund-return bottles (25-Euro-cents each).
The blunt truth is that this actress, comedian and writer has pretty much ran out of options and isn't making any kind of real income. So when they came around to suggest promi Big Brother to her.....she didn't hesitate.
Bottle-hunters can be noted every single day....usually with a bag, and they have a route which takes two or three hours in length. I've seen some of them on the streets of Wiesbaden with forty-odd bottles in their possession (rough value of ten Euro). They walk over to a coin machine and return the bottles.....getting cash value (tax free), and that two-hundred to three-hundred Euro a month makes a ton of difference on their situation.
It's a difficult confession to make....in front of a group of three to five million German viewers.
I looked up her history. She studied ballet for a while, then got into theology (it'd be a curious field), and then got signed up as a teacher for a while. She did minor work as an actress for a while, then sat down to wrote a book. Oddly, it was a best-seller book and got some big-time notice. After that, she wrote four additional books which weren't exactly best-sellers. No one hires up washed-up actresses in their late fifties, so she's on a limited situation.
Where this promi short-life story goes? Unknown. Within three weeks, this show will end and it's questionable if anything happens to change the routine for Desiree Nick. Oddly, Germans may get attracted to the life story, the bottle-hunter deal, and the promi antics.
I'll be the first to admit that I dislike these shows and rarely if ever watch them. That said....it is summer season in Germany and the TV offerings from the twenty-odd channels are lousy. Reruns from the entire last decade, cop shows from Denmark or Sweden, and old cowboy westerns are the theme for roughly two months. It's the normal average way that German TV functions in the summer months.
The management folks....doesn't matter if it's public-run or commercially-run....all agree that half the number of viewers are present and it's not worth the effort to run major draws during this period.
That said.....SAT1 ran with this promi Big Brother show....hoping to get younger viewers and more attention.
Well....last night was the evening of 'confessions', and one of the older gals on the show....Desiree Nick.....delivered her piece.
She's been a bottle-hunter....one of those people who walk the streets of a city who looks around for pfund-return bottles (25-Euro-cents each).
The blunt truth is that this actress, comedian and writer has pretty much ran out of options and isn't making any kind of real income. So when they came around to suggest promi Big Brother to her.....she didn't hesitate.
Bottle-hunters can be noted every single day....usually with a bag, and they have a route which takes two or three hours in length. I've seen some of them on the streets of Wiesbaden with forty-odd bottles in their possession (rough value of ten Euro). They walk over to a coin machine and return the bottles.....getting cash value (tax free), and that two-hundred to three-hundred Euro a month makes a ton of difference on their situation.
It's a difficult confession to make....in front of a group of three to five million German viewers.
I looked up her history. She studied ballet for a while, then got into theology (it'd be a curious field), and then got signed up as a teacher for a while. She did minor work as an actress for a while, then sat down to wrote a book. Oddly, it was a best-seller book and got some big-time notice. After that, she wrote four additional books which weren't exactly best-sellers. No one hires up washed-up actresses in their late fifties, so she's on a limited situation.
Where this promi short-life story goes? Unknown. Within three weeks, this show will end and it's questionable if anything happens to change the routine for Desiree Nick. Oddly, Germans may get attracted to the life story, the bottle-hunter deal, and the promi antics.
When You Really Need Bravura
Yesterday.....somewhere in the midst of Belgium.....on a train bound from the Netherlands to Paris....there was supposed to have been this massacre. A Jihadist guy with dreams of dead passengers on his mind....emerged from the train's toilet with his automatic rifle and plenty of ammo. The end result was supposed to have been more than two dozen dead.
Life is an odd thing.....it's often unfair and statistically, you get the short-end of the stick. Sometimes, it's over-balanced to be more than just fair.....it's balanced with a ton of bricks on the fair side and no matter what you do to unbalance the situation and bring doom to people.....more weight gets stacked on the fair side. That was the case yesterday.
For some reason, this guy picked one random car to start his business, and that was the car with three Americans traveling together. One Air Force member, one National Guard member, and one civilian. A train full of a bunch of Europeans, and three Americans. That was all it took.
The three Americans eyeballed the guy with the rifle. Most people would refer the situation, back-off or just sit there in fear. It's the normal reaction and you can't expect anything but that.
With these three.....it was the opposite instinct, and they went into action. The Jihadist had a blade of some type and tried to stab one of the Americans.....doing a fair amount of damage to the guy, but it apparently wasn't enough, and I suspect.....it just made the American twice as determined to take the guy down.
In the end, the three Americans stop the guy in his tracks. Two of the passengers (one of the Americans) were toted off the train and sent to the hospital. Bad wounds, but nothing that you will die from. A third guy (a French actor) had a hand injury but he avoided the hospital trip.
At some point in some operas.....there's this one point thrown in....called a Bravura. If you asked a thousand people about it.....maybe one would be aware of the maneuver and what it typically means. A Bravura is where you have someone in the opera group with very unique talents and you kinda dim the lights and set the stage for that person to tear loose and deliver a six-tissue weeper. This is where they do something fairly unusual. When you examine the train 'adventure', the Jihadist guy's ambitions, and the odds of having three cool-headed Americans in this one car...well....it was a Bravura in the end with the Americans delivering what they could, with what talents and skills they had, and some appreciation by those onboard the train.
Sometimes, when you need a Bravura.....you get it.
Life is an odd thing.....it's often unfair and statistically, you get the short-end of the stick. Sometimes, it's over-balanced to be more than just fair.....it's balanced with a ton of bricks on the fair side and no matter what you do to unbalance the situation and bring doom to people.....more weight gets stacked on the fair side. That was the case yesterday.
For some reason, this guy picked one random car to start his business, and that was the car with three Americans traveling together. One Air Force member, one National Guard member, and one civilian. A train full of a bunch of Europeans, and three Americans. That was all it took.
The three Americans eyeballed the guy with the rifle. Most people would refer the situation, back-off or just sit there in fear. It's the normal reaction and you can't expect anything but that.
With these three.....it was the opposite instinct, and they went into action. The Jihadist had a blade of some type and tried to stab one of the Americans.....doing a fair amount of damage to the guy, but it apparently wasn't enough, and I suspect.....it just made the American twice as determined to take the guy down.
In the end, the three Americans stop the guy in his tracks. Two of the passengers (one of the Americans) were toted off the train and sent to the hospital. Bad wounds, but nothing that you will die from. A third guy (a French actor) had a hand injury but he avoided the hospital trip.
At some point in some operas.....there's this one point thrown in....called a Bravura. If you asked a thousand people about it.....maybe one would be aware of the maneuver and what it typically means. A Bravura is where you have someone in the opera group with very unique talents and you kinda dim the lights and set the stage for that person to tear loose and deliver a six-tissue weeper. This is where they do something fairly unusual. When you examine the train 'adventure', the Jihadist guy's ambitions, and the odds of having three cool-headed Americans in this one car...well....it was a Bravura in the end with the Americans delivering what they could, with what talents and skills they had, and some appreciation by those onboard the train.
Sometimes, when you need a Bravura.....you get it.
Friday, August 21, 2015
The Announced EU Meeting?
Late last night in Germany.....the French and German Interior Ministers came out and announced that a mid-October conference would be held within the EU framework and this whole immigration and refugee thing would be discussed.
The chief topic? Right now, there's some discussion over economic refugees.....these are the guys who get one-percent approval to stay in Germany and the rest are put on a bus to go back to the original country (usually after several months of reviewing the paperwork).
Right now.....Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia are on the safe-to-return list and it's impossible for these guys to get any approvals to stay in Germany. This conference will bring up Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro. Presently, most of the 2nd group are treated like the safe-to-return group but it's not a guaranteed thing and occasionally a higher percentage gets permission to stay.
All of this is frustrating the southern European crowd because they see an unfairness with the Iraqi and Syrians getting status to stay.
My guess is that the EU will discuss a second part to this.....pushing the quickness to deny someone status to thirty days or less. Presently, these paperwork review can consume four months easily.
Another big part of the conference will involve the ratio of EU members getting refugees. They may come to some agreement that Germany will only accept X-number per year, and the remainder are farmed out to countries that the refugees don't desire as their country.
If you arrived in Germany with your family and you have twelve other distant family members already in Germany.....you kind of assume that you will go to the same city as these members and the Germans will allow you that privilege. It might be a shocker if you woke up to realize that your papers for immigration were accepted but you were designated for Spain or Denmark, and you have to live there for three years before you could resettle somewhere else. I'm guessing various court battles will loom on the horizon as civil lawyers sue and try to throw this idea out the front door.
As for the eight weeks ahead? Well.....it's a two-month period that we are talking about and at least another 150,000 immigrants and refugees will arrive in Germany by mid-October. Lots of things can happen and create other issues by the state of this conference.
The odds of the EU coming to an agreement on solving this problem? That might be something to ask but I doubt that the news media will give you a straight answer on that.
The chief topic? Right now, there's some discussion over economic refugees.....these are the guys who get one-percent approval to stay in Germany and the rest are put on a bus to go back to the original country (usually after several months of reviewing the paperwork).
Right now.....Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia are on the safe-to-return list and it's impossible for these guys to get any approvals to stay in Germany. This conference will bring up Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro. Presently, most of the 2nd group are treated like the safe-to-return group but it's not a guaranteed thing and occasionally a higher percentage gets permission to stay.
All of this is frustrating the southern European crowd because they see an unfairness with the Iraqi and Syrians getting status to stay.
My guess is that the EU will discuss a second part to this.....pushing the quickness to deny someone status to thirty days or less. Presently, these paperwork review can consume four months easily.
Another big part of the conference will involve the ratio of EU members getting refugees. They may come to some agreement that Germany will only accept X-number per year, and the remainder are farmed out to countries that the refugees don't desire as their country.
If you arrived in Germany with your family and you have twelve other distant family members already in Germany.....you kind of assume that you will go to the same city as these members and the Germans will allow you that privilege. It might be a shocker if you woke up to realize that your papers for immigration were accepted but you were designated for Spain or Denmark, and you have to live there for three years before you could resettle somewhere else. I'm guessing various court battles will loom on the horizon as civil lawyers sue and try to throw this idea out the front door.
As for the eight weeks ahead? Well.....it's a two-month period that we are talking about and at least another 150,000 immigrants and refugees will arrive in Germany by mid-October. Lots of things can happen and create other issues by the state of this conference.
The odds of the EU coming to an agreement on solving this problem? That might be something to ask but I doubt that the news media will give you a straight answer on that.
The Next Greek Election
As of late yesterday, it's major news across Germany that the Prime Minister of Greece is stepping down to call for a new election.
In roughly four weeks, another election (the last was at the end of 2014) will occur. The primary driver to this 'snap' election? Roughly one-third of the party members for Syriza (the leading party in the Parliament of Greece).....weren't in agreement with the plan ahead.
I sat and watched interviews of several Greeks (a mix of journalists, political figures, and people off the street). The political guys simply noted that it was going to happen....sooner or later, and they aren't that shocked by the matter. Regular people seem a bit more frustrated and don't have much confidence that this September election will be more than a six-to-twelve month band-aid.
Germans? Well.....this all comes just days after a loan-deal was fixed and some cash handed to the Greeks. I'd generally say that the Germans aren't shocked but they are probably gritting their teeth and preparing for a new political group to come into Athens and claim that the whole negotiation deal made over the past sixty days.....needs to be done over again, with better terms for the Greeks.
A comical opera situation? Well.....yeah.
I would go out on the limb and even predict this....whatever government comes into position by late September.....will simply be around for three-hundred-odd days before another snap election of some type has to occur. Stability isn't something you should expect if you were a Greek.
The curious part to this deal? More campaign episodes....more fraudulent promises....more political dialog over the 'evil' Germans....more talk of punishing tax evaders with no suggestions over the method....and a commitment for.....well....something marvelous. Greeks like unicorn-pony assurances, and I'm sure every political party will make sure they offer dozens of such guarantees.
In roughly four weeks, another election (the last was at the end of 2014) will occur. The primary driver to this 'snap' election? Roughly one-third of the party members for Syriza (the leading party in the Parliament of Greece).....weren't in agreement with the plan ahead.
I sat and watched interviews of several Greeks (a mix of journalists, political figures, and people off the street). The political guys simply noted that it was going to happen....sooner or later, and they aren't that shocked by the matter. Regular people seem a bit more frustrated and don't have much confidence that this September election will be more than a six-to-twelve month band-aid.
Germans? Well.....this all comes just days after a loan-deal was fixed and some cash handed to the Greeks. I'd generally say that the Germans aren't shocked but they are probably gritting their teeth and preparing for a new political group to come into Athens and claim that the whole negotiation deal made over the past sixty days.....needs to be done over again, with better terms for the Greeks.
A comical opera situation? Well.....yeah.
I would go out on the limb and even predict this....whatever government comes into position by late September.....will simply be around for three-hundred-odd days before another snap election of some type has to occur. Stability isn't something you should expect if you were a Greek.
The curious part to this deal? More campaign episodes....more fraudulent promises....more political dialog over the 'evil' Germans....more talk of punishing tax evaders with no suggestions over the method....and a commitment for.....well....something marvelous. Greeks like unicorn-pony assurances, and I'm sure every political party will make sure they offer dozens of such guarantees.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
The Out-of-Control Situation
This morning, German news is reporting out of Thuringia (a region out of the eastern side of Germany)....some big riot erupted on Wednesday evening at a refugee camp.
What the cops say is that some guy got into a verbal discussion, then ripped some pages out of a Koran. Yeah.....that kinda set things off for four hours.
The camp management staff had to call the cops and get some reinforcement folks into the situation.
Twenty folks went after this page-ripper guy, and as things progressed.....at least another fifty folks got involved.
The handful of private security guys were able to save the life of the page-ripper but it was way beyond their control with so many folks......so when the local cops arrived....it was only then that things were starting to get under some control. The episode? It lasted four hours.
The local cops report that rocks were thrown at them, and iron bars were used as weapons. Several cop vehicles were damaged, and reports indicate at least ten residents of the facility were injured in some fashion.
Charges here? I have doubts that anyone will be charged with anything. The page-ripper guy might have the police question him, but other than inciting a riot by his action.....there's nothing illegal by his action under German law. The guy's country of origin? No one says much of anything, but it'd be curious to know if he was an economic refugee or a Syrian refugee.
What the cops say is that some guy got into a verbal discussion, then ripped some pages out of a Koran. Yeah.....that kinda set things off for four hours.
The camp management staff had to call the cops and get some reinforcement folks into the situation.
Twenty folks went after this page-ripper guy, and as things progressed.....at least another fifty folks got involved.
The handful of private security guys were able to save the life of the page-ripper but it was way beyond their control with so many folks......so when the local cops arrived....it was only then that things were starting to get under some control. The episode? It lasted four hours.
The local cops report that rocks were thrown at them, and iron bars were used as weapons. Several cop vehicles were damaged, and reports indicate at least ten residents of the facility were injured in some fashion.
Charges here? I have doubts that anyone will be charged with anything. The page-ripper guy might have the police question him, but other than inciting a riot by his action.....there's nothing illegal by his action under German law. The guy's country of origin? No one says much of anything, but it'd be curious to know if he was an economic refugee or a Syrian refugee.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Mainz-Kastel Army Area in Wiesbaden
Word came out today in the Wiesbaden and Mainz-Kastel area.....that the American barracks area at the edge of Mainz-Kastel.....being turned over to the Germans.....will become refugee housing. Well....at least two of the buildings will be used as such.
I've walked by the structures and would take a guess that you could put 300-odd people into each building....depending on the arrangement.
Hostility by the locals? It could be an issue. But it's in an area of town where it's middle-class to working class folks, and no significant high-rollers. At least it's got public transportation and two or three grocery stores within walking distance.
I've walked by the structures and would take a guess that you could put 300-odd people into each building....depending on the arrangement.
Hostility by the locals? It could be an issue. But it's in an area of town where it's middle-class to working class folks, and no significant high-rollers. At least it's got public transportation and two or three grocery stores within walking distance.
The Stipend Solution?
I sat last night and watched over a brief news item on German TV, and they finally explained this little understood factor on refugees and the economic players in the game.
So, if you are a economic refugee (different from the Syrians or Iraqis), you probably come from Albania or Macedonia. Based on EU rules, no matter who you are.....you will get paperwork to fill out and get a proper evaluation, then be rendered the verdict of whether you are allowed to stay in Germany or get on the bus for a return trip.
By German rules (not EU rules), economic refugees will rarely if ever....get permission to stay. It's like one or two percent of a chance. But the economic players don't care, and you might wonder about the reason why.
Once you arrive, you turn in the paperwork, and you sit back. Reviews from a year ago could take six to eight months. Naturally, these Germans are awful nice people and they not only offer shelter and food.....but some pocket-money. And this pocket-money comes for each month.
The Germans came to realize about a month ago (it would be curious how they figured this out) that the economic refugees knew they would fail but they were coming strictly to pick up this monthly pocket-money stipend. The Germans added this up....if the economic refugee could drag this out for six months.....quietly collecting the stipend (never spending it) and just laying around the compound.....he'd have enough money to share with the family for roughly eight months. The monthly stipend basically equaled what an Albanian cop was making....per month.
Yeah.....it was a form of refugee welfare.
How to counter this? Over the weekend, the minister in charge of this business said they were reviewing the option of 'vouchers' instead of cash. This voucher deal was left up in the air. My humble guess is that it'll be like a welfare-check and used at any German grocery for a specific period of time (maybe to be used within six weeks of issue).
The Germans also hint that economic refugees and their forms will be turned faster.....meaning it won't be six months....but it's hard to see this being less than 90 days (by some miracle, the Germans might actually hire enough people to make that possible).
Trimming back the economic refugees? The statistics generally show the bulk of the 500,000 that showed up from January to July of 2015....they were economic refugees. The handling and support cost to this whole thing and the frustrating nature of the German public about this ongoing situation....needs a creative solution. Maybe fixing the stipend will be answer needed.
So, if you are a economic refugee (different from the Syrians or Iraqis), you probably come from Albania or Macedonia. Based on EU rules, no matter who you are.....you will get paperwork to fill out and get a proper evaluation, then be rendered the verdict of whether you are allowed to stay in Germany or get on the bus for a return trip.
By German rules (not EU rules), economic refugees will rarely if ever....get permission to stay. It's like one or two percent of a chance. But the economic players don't care, and you might wonder about the reason why.
Once you arrive, you turn in the paperwork, and you sit back. Reviews from a year ago could take six to eight months. Naturally, these Germans are awful nice people and they not only offer shelter and food.....but some pocket-money. And this pocket-money comes for each month.
The Germans came to realize about a month ago (it would be curious how they figured this out) that the economic refugees knew they would fail but they were coming strictly to pick up this monthly pocket-money stipend. The Germans added this up....if the economic refugee could drag this out for six months.....quietly collecting the stipend (never spending it) and just laying around the compound.....he'd have enough money to share with the family for roughly eight months. The monthly stipend basically equaled what an Albanian cop was making....per month.
Yeah.....it was a form of refugee welfare.
How to counter this? Over the weekend, the minister in charge of this business said they were reviewing the option of 'vouchers' instead of cash. This voucher deal was left up in the air. My humble guess is that it'll be like a welfare-check and used at any German grocery for a specific period of time (maybe to be used within six weeks of issue).
The Germans also hint that economic refugees and their forms will be turned faster.....meaning it won't be six months....but it's hard to see this being less than 90 days (by some miracle, the Germans might actually hire enough people to make that possible).
Trimming back the economic refugees? The statistics generally show the bulk of the 500,000 that showed up from January to July of 2015....they were economic refugees. The handling and support cost to this whole thing and the frustrating nature of the German public about this ongoing situation....needs a creative solution. Maybe fixing the stipend will be answer needed.
The German Seizure Story
I noticed this interesting story that came up this morning over refugees in Germany.
Tubingen is this town down in Baden-Wurttemberg (southern-half of Germany).....with a population of roughly ninety-thousand residents. The chief business around this city is mostly related to the university. It's a shock when you note that the university has almost ten thousand employees and almost twenty-eight thousand students. When you want to talk politics about the town....it's a youth-driven agenda or a university-driven agenda.
Well....the mayor (a Green Party member) has come upon this problem of housing the refugees coming into Tubingen.
There is a little-known law in Germany that allows mayors, under certain conditions, to temporarily seize homes in a local area. As much as I've figured out.....it relates to public safety but there's not a lot of discussion by German legal folks over the application in this sense.
The mayor says if necessary.....he'll seize empty houses within Tubingen and utilize them for several months to handle the incoming refugees to his city.
Naturally, this type of talk has triggered some opposition comments over the legality of using state laws to temporarily confiscate private property. After the utilization (say six months of refugee use), then there's the question of damages and how the state pays the private owner for this.
My humble guess is that legal efforts would occur and draw this into a two-year German court battle. The use of the law in this case? It might be employed on one occasion and then get dragged out long enough to make it more of a comedy act than a legal standing.
Tubingen is this town down in Baden-Wurttemberg (southern-half of Germany).....with a population of roughly ninety-thousand residents. The chief business around this city is mostly related to the university. It's a shock when you note that the university has almost ten thousand employees and almost twenty-eight thousand students. When you want to talk politics about the town....it's a youth-driven agenda or a university-driven agenda.
Well....the mayor (a Green Party member) has come upon this problem of housing the refugees coming into Tubingen.
There is a little-known law in Germany that allows mayors, under certain conditions, to temporarily seize homes in a local area. As much as I've figured out.....it relates to public safety but there's not a lot of discussion by German legal folks over the application in this sense.
The mayor says if necessary.....he'll seize empty houses within Tubingen and utilize them for several months to handle the incoming refugees to his city.
Naturally, this type of talk has triggered some opposition comments over the legality of using state laws to temporarily confiscate private property. After the utilization (say six months of refugee use), then there's the question of damages and how the state pays the private owner for this.
My humble guess is that legal efforts would occur and draw this into a two-year German court battle. The use of the law in this case? It might be employed on one occasion and then get dragged out long enough to make it more of a comedy act than a legal standing.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
The Greek Airports Story
There is a deal which concluded in the past day or two in Greece.....involving fourteen Greek airports. Most of these were small airports which people wouldn't recognize.....but five were significant airports in Greece.....Thessaloniki, Corfu, Rhodes, Kos and Santorini.
The deal? FRAPORT (the big Frankfurt Airport Company) will pay roughly twenty-three million Euro a year to the government of Greece. In exchange.....they will manage these fourteen airports in terms of both passenger and cargo.
Some anti-capitalists will jump into this episode and get all upset that the Germans got some sweetheart deal, and screwed the Greeks yet again. It is a shocker.....the FRAPORT crew actually bid on the deal and they were willing to pay more than anyone else. It's money guaranteed to the Greek government for the life of the contract.
How does FRAPORT profit? When you examine their business plan with various airports around the world.....they hire competent people who know how to build up an airport as a business mechanism. It's not an accidental Micky-Mouse operation where profits are marginal and corruption a daily affair. They look at various ways to build up tourism....entice more airlines to use the airport, work up cargo situations where new businesses want to utilize the airport for their structure.
FRAPORT makes profits.....you can see that from their yearly reports. They aren't a failing business operation.
As for the Greeks? I've been through both Corfu and Thessaloniki Airports. What I'll generally say is that they remind me of Central American airports.....with a unplanned theme and no real vision about the airport growing or being inviting. Corfu has the rusted metal siding and marginal air conditioning system. Thessaloniki had a new presentation on the arrival side and actually looked fairly modern until you got to the second floor and the security area (dark and looking like something out of the 1970s).
Greeks may accept that type of atmosphere, but the majority of travelers who spend money to come to Greece....are European and kinda expect something more in the airport.
I see the deal as a win-win situation. Some Greeks may be upset that they aren't in control of these airports....but frankly, airports of today....are strictly business operations and not some 'favored-son-operation' that existed forty years ago when they put up a big statue at the front of the airport to honor so-and-so for their fifty years of political contributions. If they wanted the airport to be just a charity operation.....they should have said that from day one on and just kept pumping money into a failed operation.
The deal? FRAPORT (the big Frankfurt Airport Company) will pay roughly twenty-three million Euro a year to the government of Greece. In exchange.....they will manage these fourteen airports in terms of both passenger and cargo.
Some anti-capitalists will jump into this episode and get all upset that the Germans got some sweetheart deal, and screwed the Greeks yet again. It is a shocker.....the FRAPORT crew actually bid on the deal and they were willing to pay more than anyone else. It's money guaranteed to the Greek government for the life of the contract.
How does FRAPORT profit? When you examine their business plan with various airports around the world.....they hire competent people who know how to build up an airport as a business mechanism. It's not an accidental Micky-Mouse operation where profits are marginal and corruption a daily affair. They look at various ways to build up tourism....entice more airlines to use the airport, work up cargo situations where new businesses want to utilize the airport for their structure.
FRAPORT makes profits.....you can see that from their yearly reports. They aren't a failing business operation.
As for the Greeks? I've been through both Corfu and Thessaloniki Airports. What I'll generally say is that they remind me of Central American airports.....with a unplanned theme and no real vision about the airport growing or being inviting. Corfu has the rusted metal siding and marginal air conditioning system. Thessaloniki had a new presentation on the arrival side and actually looked fairly modern until you got to the second floor and the security area (dark and looking like something out of the 1970s).
Greeks may accept that type of atmosphere, but the majority of travelers who spend money to come to Greece....are European and kinda expect something more in the airport.
I see the deal as a win-win situation. Some Greeks may be upset that they aren't in control of these airports....but frankly, airports of today....are strictly business operations and not some 'favored-son-operation' that existed forty years ago when they put up a big statue at the front of the airport to honor so-and-so for their fifty years of political contributions. If they wanted the airport to be just a charity operation.....they should have said that from day one on and just kept pumping money into a failed operation.
Germany and the New Folks?
I sat last night and watched ZDF (channel two) news here in Germany. The big chunk of the news was about the refugee crisis and what is in the funnel currently.
So, they had a reporter down in Macedonia and were at some railway station. From the view of the camera, I'd take a guess that at least four-thousand people were crowded around the station and waiting for this train to pull in. The village was the first place you'd come to in Macedonia....if you crossed the border of Greece.
Gevgelelija was the name of this village. Typically, it's a small town of 15,500-odd people....not known for much but having this one railway station. As the train doors opened.....the camera guy caught the action. I'd take a guess that each single car had at least 400 people onboard (typically built for 100-150 passengers). If they could have ridden on the roof (like in India), they would have done so. The train eventually pulled out of town, leaving behind a couple hundred folks who simply wouldn't fit on. The suggested thought was that another train would be there within a number of hours and the rest of them would leave on it.
The ARD crew did a decent job and tried to explain this route that has developed. Everyone pays money for some ship/boat crew to get them near Greece. They land near the mainland and then walk their way up to the border, then trek through Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, and then through Austria.
You can figure this 'hike' or walk is in the range of 1,600 kilometers (roughly 1,000 miles). From April to October, it's a fairly decent walk and you could make it with no cars, taxis, or trains.....in about 55 days (figure 30 kilometers minimum per day). If you throw in three or four train rides, especially through Hungary and Austria....you might be able to do the trip in 15 days.
No one, at least from what the German news folks have shown.....is making any attempt to slow these people down except the fencing crew in Hungary (they've got several crews working on a crew to put a fence up across the Serbian front). Naturally, it'll just take minutes for any refugee to figure the next route through Romania or Croatia, and the Hungarians will have to go back to work and spend tens of millions to extend the fence. Action by Romania or Croatia? I wouldn't expect much.....they knew the refugees won't stay.....they all are thinking Germany.
At some point in July, the Germans say they crossed the 500,000 refugee point entering the country. Over the past two weeks, with more reports coming in.....one gets the impression that there's probably a minimum of 300,000 people in the pipeline just right now. How many more will start the trip in September and try to make it by December? Unknown....but it's pretty easy to see the one-million-plus number being discussed.
One discussion over the weekend popped up that the Germans have figured out from economic refugees (mostly from Albania)....it's mostly guys who've left their families behind, and the general intent is to simply get into Germany....get to some camp.....start collecting 'pocket-money' issued for each week/month and just save it up. After four or five months in the camp and denied permanent status to stay....they go back home and the whole family lives off their collected pocket-money for six to eight months. The Germans say they will create a voucher deal, where you get this voucher which is only good for a certain amount of time and only good for German stores. In that case, it's a wasted trip for the economic traveler.
The other folks? Well, it's generally accepted that if you come from Eritrea or Iraq, or Syria.....you will get permanent status.
How long does the episode continue on? You really don't have that question being asked by the German news media. I don't think they really want to answer that. No one wants to imagine that 2016 will mean another one-million-plus refugees or immigrants entering Germany. And with 2017 as the next big election year....you can sense that the political folks need some solution in play by spring of 2016 or it becomes a one-topic election and some right-wing party appears out of nowhere to disestablish both the CDU and the SPD.
I read some short piece this morning, with the UN high commissioner noting that some plan has to be created where Europe 'shares' these refugees. This has become such a hot political topic that it's hard to imagine where enthusiasm would be created for dumping 5,000 or 20,000 refugees on some country that really doesn't want them. You can conceptualize Finland coming into this mess and taking 15,000 such refugees but they wake up to find the train dumped them off a hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle in Finland in a village that is mostly non-existent since the 1960s because the factories all shut down. The odds of these guys staying in such a condition? Zero.
At some point last night, the news guy got onto the topic of cellphones. Oddly, most of these guys have cellphones that they've acquired. It's not readily explain and maybe it's something that the smugglers sold them or what they picked up in Greece. But they use the cellphones to communicate....take pictures along the way.....and figure out their GPS point on the map and where to head onto next. In some ways, I admire their cleverness and ingenuity.
I'm not a German and personally.....I don't care if 50 people come or a million people come. I simply look at the whole process and kinda wonder....once they get here to Germany....are they really aware of what they've signed up for?
It's kinda like a trip to Disneyland and you see all these wonderful pictures and advertisements of a grand place with jobs, paved roads, twenty-four-a-day electricity, and a marvelous culture. About six hours into arriving at Disneyland.....you start to be amazed over the cost of food, the expensive gas prices, the striking 19-percent VAT sales tax, and the jobs that do exist are mostly the minimum wage situations. About a week into the experience, you question yourself and how much effort you put into this journey and how Disneyland-Deutschland just isn't that astonishing place you imagined.
So, they had a reporter down in Macedonia and were at some railway station. From the view of the camera, I'd take a guess that at least four-thousand people were crowded around the station and waiting for this train to pull in. The village was the first place you'd come to in Macedonia....if you crossed the border of Greece.
Gevgelelija was the name of this village. Typically, it's a small town of 15,500-odd people....not known for much but having this one railway station. As the train doors opened.....the camera guy caught the action. I'd take a guess that each single car had at least 400 people onboard (typically built for 100-150 passengers). If they could have ridden on the roof (like in India), they would have done so. The train eventually pulled out of town, leaving behind a couple hundred folks who simply wouldn't fit on. The suggested thought was that another train would be there within a number of hours and the rest of them would leave on it.
The ARD crew did a decent job and tried to explain this route that has developed. Everyone pays money for some ship/boat crew to get them near Greece. They land near the mainland and then walk their way up to the border, then trek through Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, and then through Austria.
You can figure this 'hike' or walk is in the range of 1,600 kilometers (roughly 1,000 miles). From April to October, it's a fairly decent walk and you could make it with no cars, taxis, or trains.....in about 55 days (figure 30 kilometers minimum per day). If you throw in three or four train rides, especially through Hungary and Austria....you might be able to do the trip in 15 days.
No one, at least from what the German news folks have shown.....is making any attempt to slow these people down except the fencing crew in Hungary (they've got several crews working on a crew to put a fence up across the Serbian front). Naturally, it'll just take minutes for any refugee to figure the next route through Romania or Croatia, and the Hungarians will have to go back to work and spend tens of millions to extend the fence. Action by Romania or Croatia? I wouldn't expect much.....they knew the refugees won't stay.....they all are thinking Germany.
At some point in July, the Germans say they crossed the 500,000 refugee point entering the country. Over the past two weeks, with more reports coming in.....one gets the impression that there's probably a minimum of 300,000 people in the pipeline just right now. How many more will start the trip in September and try to make it by December? Unknown....but it's pretty easy to see the one-million-plus number being discussed.
One discussion over the weekend popped up that the Germans have figured out from economic refugees (mostly from Albania)....it's mostly guys who've left their families behind, and the general intent is to simply get into Germany....get to some camp.....start collecting 'pocket-money' issued for each week/month and just save it up. After four or five months in the camp and denied permanent status to stay....they go back home and the whole family lives off their collected pocket-money for six to eight months. The Germans say they will create a voucher deal, where you get this voucher which is only good for a certain amount of time and only good for German stores. In that case, it's a wasted trip for the economic traveler.
The other folks? Well, it's generally accepted that if you come from Eritrea or Iraq, or Syria.....you will get permanent status.
How long does the episode continue on? You really don't have that question being asked by the German news media. I don't think they really want to answer that. No one wants to imagine that 2016 will mean another one-million-plus refugees or immigrants entering Germany. And with 2017 as the next big election year....you can sense that the political folks need some solution in play by spring of 2016 or it becomes a one-topic election and some right-wing party appears out of nowhere to disestablish both the CDU and the SPD.
I read some short piece this morning, with the UN high commissioner noting that some plan has to be created where Europe 'shares' these refugees. This has become such a hot political topic that it's hard to imagine where enthusiasm would be created for dumping 5,000 or 20,000 refugees on some country that really doesn't want them. You can conceptualize Finland coming into this mess and taking 15,000 such refugees but they wake up to find the train dumped them off a hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle in Finland in a village that is mostly non-existent since the 1960s because the factories all shut down. The odds of these guys staying in such a condition? Zero.
At some point last night, the news guy got onto the topic of cellphones. Oddly, most of these guys have cellphones that they've acquired. It's not readily explain and maybe it's something that the smugglers sold them or what they picked up in Greece. But they use the cellphones to communicate....take pictures along the way.....and figure out their GPS point on the map and where to head onto next. In some ways, I admire their cleverness and ingenuity.
I'm not a German and personally.....I don't care if 50 people come or a million people come. I simply look at the whole process and kinda wonder....once they get here to Germany....are they really aware of what they've signed up for?
It's kinda like a trip to Disneyland and you see all these wonderful pictures and advertisements of a grand place with jobs, paved roads, twenty-four-a-day electricity, and a marvelous culture. About six hours into arriving at Disneyland.....you start to be amazed over the cost of food, the expensive gas prices, the striking 19-percent VAT sales tax, and the jobs that do exist are mostly the minimum wage situations. About a week into the experience, you question yourself and how much effort you put into this journey and how Disneyland-Deutschland just isn't that astonishing place you imagined.
Monday, August 17, 2015
BER Update
It barely got mentioned in the past week....maybe a minute or two in the German business news.....but a major player in the Berlin airport (BER) fix-up job.....went bankrupt. IMTECH was supposed to be fixing all the screw-ups of the original project (was supposed to have opened in 2012).....involving ventilation and electrical work, and they went into court to declare bankruptcy.
The anticipated repairs were supposed be done by 2017 and BER was finally supposed to open.
No one says much, and the political folks are real quiet about this new event. If the court drags out the bankruptcy episode and a new player has to be drawn into this.....you can figure we will go well past 2017, and maybe even past 2018....before BER opens.
An embarrassment? About every three months....some German comedian goes out to BER and does some skit or episode over the failed project. Germans have gotten use to that. You can go and pay roughly twenty Euro and ride a bus tour around the whole operation and see the runway area. It's become part of the German culture.....just another failed project.
The anticipated repairs were supposed be done by 2017 and BER was finally supposed to open.
No one says much, and the political folks are real quiet about this new event. If the court drags out the bankruptcy episode and a new player has to be drawn into this.....you can figure we will go well past 2017, and maybe even past 2018....before BER opens.
An embarrassment? About every three months....some German comedian goes out to BER and does some skit or episode over the failed project. Germans have gotten use to that. You can go and pay roughly twenty Euro and ride a bus tour around the whole operation and see the runway area. It's become part of the German culture.....just another failed project.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
The Calden Story
It's a brief news item out of the German news magazine "Focus", which will get some political interest and maybe get into some German chat forum.
Out of my German state of Hessen.....up in the north of the state, there's Calden. There's a airport property there next to the town.....which isn't really used much. The state has put up a refugee camp on the open property which handles two or three thousand folks.
About ten minutes walking from this refugee camp is a Edeka shop. It's a smaller grocery operation which tends to draw folks because of their meat and vegetable/fruit selection.
Well....the refugees started showing up there after they got the 'camp' going and were being issued pocket money. Then some problems started to occur.
What 'Focus' says is that the refugees showed up in larger numbers.....I'm guessing thirty or forty at a whack. Edeka shops are typically not big shops....maybe 150 feet by 150 feet. With the regular customers, lines got a lot longer (like you'd expect). Then people brought their kids along and they weren't the orderly type that you'd typically expect out of German kids. Some packaging or boxes got open during this period.....which maybe you can tie into the refugee crowd (typically, Germans don't open boxes). Finally, crime increased (shoplifting).
Focus doesn't cite numbers and Edeka won't say how much but it was enough to warrant a change. So, a security guard was hired for the store and stands at the entry. He's there to ensure a new policy......only two refugees at a time to enter the store and do business. As each leaves.....another will be allowed to enter. You can do the math....if they open at 7AM and two folks enter for 30 minutes of shopping....there will be a line out front for most of the day with fifty people lined up and spending three to four hours waiting until they get inside. Frustrations will arise real quick when regular Germans enter. I'm guessing after four weeks of this....they may have to shut down the store because of complaints.
Naturally, questions came from the news media, and Edeka didn't really want to say much. But there was this brief comment.....where they noted they were absolutely in favor of helping refugees and think it's a morale duty....but those who come must obey the law because it's their morale duty.
I've been through Calden.....it's a small town of maybe seven thousand people. Most people thought the renovated airport would bring more business into town....it didn't. They probably wonder now about the usage of the airport grounds for a refugee center as being smart. They might also question how long this situation will last.
As for the security guard concept....if you look around various areas of Frankfurt and Berlin....there are a handful of store operations which have a security guy near the front door. The electronic shops like Saturn and Media-Markt both employ security guys and actively have to chase down shoplifters. A business owner has to take appropriate measures to ensure customer safety and success of the store.
My guess is that some news media folks will see this as a negative against the refugee crowd and try to twist it into some significant story. Strangely.....they aren't the ones running a store or watching events unfold.
Out of my German state of Hessen.....up in the north of the state, there's Calden. There's a airport property there next to the town.....which isn't really used much. The state has put up a refugee camp on the open property which handles two or three thousand folks.
About ten minutes walking from this refugee camp is a Edeka shop. It's a smaller grocery operation which tends to draw folks because of their meat and vegetable/fruit selection.
Well....the refugees started showing up there after they got the 'camp' going and were being issued pocket money. Then some problems started to occur.
What 'Focus' says is that the refugees showed up in larger numbers.....I'm guessing thirty or forty at a whack. Edeka shops are typically not big shops....maybe 150 feet by 150 feet. With the regular customers, lines got a lot longer (like you'd expect). Then people brought their kids along and they weren't the orderly type that you'd typically expect out of German kids. Some packaging or boxes got open during this period.....which maybe you can tie into the refugee crowd (typically, Germans don't open boxes). Finally, crime increased (shoplifting).
Focus doesn't cite numbers and Edeka won't say how much but it was enough to warrant a change. So, a security guard was hired for the store and stands at the entry. He's there to ensure a new policy......only two refugees at a time to enter the store and do business. As each leaves.....another will be allowed to enter. You can do the math....if they open at 7AM and two folks enter for 30 minutes of shopping....there will be a line out front for most of the day with fifty people lined up and spending three to four hours waiting until they get inside. Frustrations will arise real quick when regular Germans enter. I'm guessing after four weeks of this....they may have to shut down the store because of complaints.
Naturally, questions came from the news media, and Edeka didn't really want to say much. But there was this brief comment.....where they noted they were absolutely in favor of helping refugees and think it's a morale duty....but those who come must obey the law because it's their morale duty.
I've been through Calden.....it's a small town of maybe seven thousand people. Most people thought the renovated airport would bring more business into town....it didn't. They probably wonder now about the usage of the airport grounds for a refugee center as being smart. They might also question how long this situation will last.
As for the security guard concept....if you look around various areas of Frankfurt and Berlin....there are a handful of store operations which have a security guy near the front door. The electronic shops like Saturn and Media-Markt both employ security guys and actively have to chase down shoplifters. A business owner has to take appropriate measures to ensure customer safety and success of the store.
My guess is that some news media folks will see this as a negative against the refugee crowd and try to twist it into some significant story. Strangely.....they aren't the ones running a store or watching events unfold.
Friday, August 14, 2015
Dresden: The Moschee-looking Building Along the River
Around the early part of the 1900s, this Jewish businessman (Hugo Zietz) had this growing tobacco and cigarette sales operation. A lot of the tobacco that Hugo used for his maket.....came from what is Turkey. Somewhere in his travels.....he was impressed with the Islamic structures built in the region.
So, Hugo came back to Dresden for this idea of a new cigarette factory along the river. The design started in 1907 and it was completed in 1909. Renovation took place around fifteen years ago and it's still a prominent point in Dresden, with a large beer-garden operation on the side of it.
Oddly, it's a comical situation when you view the whole story. Today? Germans actually refer to the building as the "Tabakmoschee" (the tobacco Mosque).
The general story is that the city council got fairly upset with the whole idea of the factory in general being that close to the 'old-city' and culture zone.....but the Mosque-look just wound the city authority up another notch or two. The Minarets? Those are the two chimney-looking deals with cones over the top. Well...they were actual chimneys and meant to hide the industrial side of the whole structure.....with smoke that would pour out of the Minaret-looking tops.
Hugo had one of the larger industrial operations in town and employed a thousand employees in this era of 1910. Ninety percent of the employees? Women. Local historians note that Hugo paid a higher wage for the women, and had far better facilities (probably meaning bathrooms) than any other operation in town. For all these reasons, and the threat that he might up and leave Dresden.....Hugo got his way to build this unique building.
The ownership of the company and Tabakmoschee? Well....Hugo ran the operation successfully for fifteen years after it was built. He sold it around 1925 and he died in 1927. Not much is said over his last year or two, or the contributing factors of his death. The sales profit of the company? In 1925, it was valued at $4 million dollars. Today, that value would be in the range of $600 to $700 million. Oddly, he took the profits and moved them around to twenty-three different banks in Germany, Europe and the US. After his death, it became a four-star taxation issue with various countries thinking they were deserved a piece of the pie.
Bad Schandau: Dresden Excursion
Around the late 1800s, Germans got into this hobby of wandering. You'd take a train to a certain point, get off....and trek miles and miles for one day.....find a cabin operation where the couple would feed you with a hearty dinner and offer a couple of beers to quench your thirst. Then you'd retire for the night and sleep in a bunk....arising the next morning to a hearty breakfast and hike some more before you reached another railway station and head back home.
By 1905, this was hiking method was becoming heavily commercialized. The folks at Bad Schandau figured out the gimmick of putting up an elevator-like operation.....charging some money to get you five-hundred-odd feet up the mountain and give you a head start on the hiking experience. It was a great tower to stand and observe the valley, which I think was half the reason you took the tower excursion. The tower and elevator are still in operation today. I'd take a guess that around a hundred people a day take the one-minute ride to the top.
The guest facilities at the top? Well....it was built around 1905 and probably saw hundreds of thousands of guests come and go over the next couple of decades. After the war, DDR came into being and you get the impression that guests were fewer in nature.....with money rarely ever being poured into the gasthaus.Today, it simply sits there with a 'for-sale' sign on the front. I doubt if it's been used in at least a decade. Around the corner.....some took another of the local houses and tried to make it work a decade ago, and it doesn't appear to have been a success. It's up for sale too.
It's another example of the fixer-upper environment there in former DDR (East Germany). It's German quality engineered and built.....but it needs extensive work to bring it up to standards. The possibility of hikers using the facility again? The old habit of a two-day hike is still around but people don't spend the type of money that you'd need to keep such an operation in use today.
You'd have to pour in a hundred-thousand Euro minimum for the place to be usable again. And I have doubts that they'd be willing to sell it for low price.....thinking some idiot would still pay top Euro for it.
Anyway, if you desire a day-trip out of Dresden.....this is a four-star opportunity. I should note, this region of Saxson is a major farming region, and there are dozens of fruit and vegetable stands along the way to Bad Schandau. The best place to park near the elevator? The village swimming pool has an excellent parking lot (you have to pay though), and there is a decent pub/cafe there for a long sip of water after a walk on the mountain top.
The Ferris Wheel of Dresden
It's an interesting thing to stand there and observe this engineering marvel being put together. There's the chief.....an older guy in his late 50's who simply stands back and watches progress and ensures the team doesn't screw up.
The team? Mostly all younger guys, in their mid-twenties.....lean.....I counted eight of them. At 9PM, they'd already been working a minimum of twelve hours, and I suspected they had at least two more hours of work before the thing would be concluded.
The number of pieces and parts? It'd be interesting to see the listing....probably over two thousand items which have to be hooked up and secured in some fashion. Probably the take-down and set-up plan is carefully laid out and certain boxes for these bolts and those screws.
I stood there for a good twenty minutes observing this operation. It's hot sweaty work and you really don't have time to pause or take breaks. Nor do you have time to screw up or make a stupid mistake. I imagine the team gets paid for the event and not by the hour. You can figure the Ferris wheel will be up for seven to ten days, and then get removed by the same team.....then moved onto the next site, and go through the same plan again.
No one ever thinks about these marvels of engineering and how much effort goes into the planning, design, and normal put-up/tear-down episodes. We simply marvel in the end over the view from the top.
Wiesbaden Murder Episode
While I was out of town for a couple of days.....we had a murder in Wiesbaden. Statistically, there are awful few murders in the city of 280,000-odd people. So when one occurs, it gets noted throughout the local press.
It's a refugee gal from Eritrea (near the horn of Africa).....early 20's....single....stabbed a number of times. She was staying in the local refugee facility in Wiesbaden and she was found in her room dead. From the description of the situation.....it's a likely member of the 250-to-300 refugees in the building who did the killing. Forensic experts were called in and will be looking at clues.
What happens after they figure out the person involved? Asylum opportunities dissolve at that point for the person, but German court action will probably not get the person more than fifteen to twenty years. They will keep their nationality and simply get sent back at the end of prison sentence.
I would imagine that someone will eventually ask if this refugee center environment is a safe place for young women or families. I'm not talking about the Wiesbaden center.....but across the entire spectrum in Germany. You end up with people with a harsh view of reality living among people who are naive. It's not a good mix. But I'm at a loss to figure out how you'd ensure the safety of all these refugees within the system today (500,000 is the number mentioned for the first half of 2015).
It's a refugee gal from Eritrea (near the horn of Africa).....early 20's....single....stabbed a number of times. She was staying in the local refugee facility in Wiesbaden and she was found in her room dead. From the description of the situation.....it's a likely member of the 250-to-300 refugees in the building who did the killing. Forensic experts were called in and will be looking at clues.
What happens after they figure out the person involved? Asylum opportunities dissolve at that point for the person, but German court action will probably not get the person more than fifteen to twenty years. They will keep their nationality and simply get sent back at the end of prison sentence.
I would imagine that someone will eventually ask if this refugee center environment is a safe place for young women or families. I'm not talking about the Wiesbaden center.....but across the entire spectrum in Germany. You end up with people with a harsh view of reality living among people who are naive. It's not a good mix. But I'm at a loss to figure out how you'd ensure the safety of all these refugees within the system today (500,000 is the number mentioned for the first half of 2015).
Eastside of Dresden
The first is the English Gardens or referred to by the locals as the "Large Garden". It's a piece of property measuring roughly 3,100 feet by 6,300 feet.
The original concept came up around 1676.....a landscaped piece of property with trees, open ground, small ponds and streams.
It's gone through various stages over the past 350-odd years, and hit some low points.
The park has a light-rail connection at one end which can deliver a guy from the middle of Dresden to the park in a matter of ten minutes. It's also near a hop-on-hop-off point with the tourist bus.
If you note the one picture shown.....the grass is awful dead at present.....from a six-week long drought.
The second site? Oddly, the German Hygiene Museum. This started out in 1912 as the German Medical Museum.
Oddly, it wasn't a government or university-run operation in the beginning. It was sponsored by a successful businessman from the local area....Karl August Lingner.
Naturally, Lingner and his business front produced a number of health-related products.....and I would imagine the original displays all tied into his product line and future sales activity. The thing is.....it drew people from the very beginning because of the clever graphic displays and the ability to take a complex medical situation and explain it in simple details.
In the 1930s.....the Nazis came to control the Museum and had the display graphics shifted around to focus on their supported ideas around Eugenics. The structure was heavily damaged in WW II, and rebuilt to some degree during the DDR-era. Around twenty years ago, it went through another renovation episode and continues on today.
There are three basic displays. There's the kid's science area over the human body, the adult science area which covers everything related to health and hygiene, and the special display area. Right now, the special display area is a graphical detail episode to explain 'relationships' and how they fit into the human health situation.
The relationships display.....from my own prospective.....has a relationship to old DDR values and is amusing at certain times.
The museum and gardens are next to each other and you probably need six to eight hours to do a decent walk through them. The museum has a coffee shop and it's a good place to guzzle down some water if you get dehydrated.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
The 'Elephant' Door
Some story? You'd sit and ponder over this. This original guy...probably from 1905....who built the house....probably had some years in India or Africa. Maybe he was a safari guy, or just some zoo-manager in the local area of Dresden.
A nifty symbol of the house? Well.....today, I bet everyone within a mile of the home......knows of the elephant over the door, and has some invented story of who this guy was.
Trip to Dresden
First, just about every American ought to go and spend three or four days in some former east-bloc Soviet empire state (DDR for example). You end up marveling over four zones of life: the marble and historic period (before the 1890s), then the period before WW II and the 1890s, then the Soviet era from 1945 to 1990, and finally the ultra modern period. In a matter of ten minutes, you can walk through all four periods and think for a minute that you are in some Disney-Twilight-type zone.
Two, no matter what you think the real price of ice cream ought to be in 99-percent of Germany.....in Dresden.....it's thirty-percent more expensive. Go figure.....they had to find some way to make money back fast.
Three, on a hot day of walking around Dresden.....you come to the end of the day and realize you've consumed at least six beers, a dozen water-bottles, and still feel thirsty. In 90-degree-plus heat, staying hydrated takes up two hours of the day. Thankfully, they've got tons of open shading and city parks where a slight breeze offers relief.
Four, Saxsons (that's the region) know how to cook. If you can find an open table and get a non-tourist-trap restaurant......opt for the big 'grill-platter' and prepare yourself for a feast.
Five, there's some unique dressing style for gals in the Dresden/Saxson area. It's half Parisian, half-Soviet trashy tramp, half-ultra modern with rips and cuts in cloth that challenge the mind, and somewhat messing up your mind with weird stuff that you wouldn't think would exist.
Sixth, crime is almost non-existent. It was curious to be walking around at 10PM at night....major city of 500,000 and just not feeling any threat existing. People out.....drinking.....and everyone seems someone 'nice'.
Seventh, once you get past the WW II or Soviet period.....you start to realize that Dresden and the whole Saxson region had tons of money, innovation, capital improvements, and probably had the strongest educational structure of any place in Germany. All of that came to an end in 1945 (don't bring up the US/UK bombing of the city.....there's a negativity still in existence today), and the Soviet era probably didn't help matters.
Eighth, the whole city of Dresden runs off a four-star light-rail tram system, and it's probably a model for any city that wants the stuff. Tons of money spent on this, and it's all ultra modern stuff from the past twenty years. You start to notice traffic isn't a big deal around the city....mostly because of the tram and the usage of bikes by residents.
Ninth, lots of economic and capital deals are sitting there in Dresden. A guy with a smart idea, some cash flow, and willingness to seize opportunity.....would find five-star situation awaiting him there.
Tenth, the river, which everyone gets all peppy about and talk excessively.....at least to a guy from Alabama.....is more of a creek than a river. But don't insult anyone by suggesting such.
Sunday, August 9, 2015
The German Work Visa for Balkans Immigrants?
Lately, there's been this discussion mostly by the Green Party in Germany, and to a lesser degree the SPD Party.....over finding some middle-ground for a work visa for the Balkans crowd, who are walking into Germany and asking for immigration status.
The current German policy is zero approval if you come out of the Balkans. Unless you can show some threat to your life.....there's virtually no way they will approve the immigration status. In an amusing way though....the Germans will spend weeks and weeks in some paperwork approval process....letting the Balkans guy or gal sit there and think for a long time that they might be approved (they rarely if ever, get approval to stay). Naturally, they get frustrated and angry as time goes by and the 'no' finally comes.
So, the work visa has been brought up. No one is clear over how it would work. You'd probably apply for the visa in the Balkans.....maybe over the internet....and get a visa but it'd only work if you are offered a contract with someone.
The odds of a German company offering a contract? No one has said much over this. Unemployment in Germany goes from six percent in most urban areas.....to around fifteen percent in the eastern side of the country in rural areas.
Would the Balkan guy or gal speak German? That's something that hasn't been brought up. How would a guy show up with a contract and a work visa.....but have minimum usage of German?
All of this leads me to this view that at best....of the five-hundred-thousand potential Balkan immigrants in 2015, under this nifty work visa idea....they might all get a work visa. But let's be honest...there's probably only fifteen thousand that will get a short-term contract (trucker, farm worker, kitchen guy, etc). The idea that the work visa will lead onto a long term deal and permission to stay forever in Germany? I'm guessing it's almost a zero-percent chance. So, in the end....you get a brief positive feeling by the Balkans people over this potential change....until they figure out that it helps less than five-percent of the people who desperately want out of the Balkans.
Sometimes.....a good idea looks good on paper, and after you implement it.....you come to realize it's a one-star idea in real life. The truth is.....anything is better than a zero-star idea, and so the one-star idea might not be so stupid.
The current German policy is zero approval if you come out of the Balkans. Unless you can show some threat to your life.....there's virtually no way they will approve the immigration status. In an amusing way though....the Germans will spend weeks and weeks in some paperwork approval process....letting the Balkans guy or gal sit there and think for a long time that they might be approved (they rarely if ever, get approval to stay). Naturally, they get frustrated and angry as time goes by and the 'no' finally comes.
So, the work visa has been brought up. No one is clear over how it would work. You'd probably apply for the visa in the Balkans.....maybe over the internet....and get a visa but it'd only work if you are offered a contract with someone.
The odds of a German company offering a contract? No one has said much over this. Unemployment in Germany goes from six percent in most urban areas.....to around fifteen percent in the eastern side of the country in rural areas.
Would the Balkan guy or gal speak German? That's something that hasn't been brought up. How would a guy show up with a contract and a work visa.....but have minimum usage of German?
All of this leads me to this view that at best....of the five-hundred-thousand potential Balkan immigrants in 2015, under this nifty work visa idea....they might all get a work visa. But let's be honest...there's probably only fifteen thousand that will get a short-term contract (trucker, farm worker, kitchen guy, etc). The idea that the work visa will lead onto a long term deal and permission to stay forever in Germany? I'm guessing it's almost a zero-percent chance. So, in the end....you get a brief positive feeling by the Balkans people over this potential change....until they figure out that it helps less than five-percent of the people who desperately want out of the Balkans.
Sometimes.....a good idea looks good on paper, and after you implement it.....you come to realize it's a one-star idea in real life. The truth is.....anything is better than a zero-star idea, and so the one-star idea might not be so stupid.
Saturday, August 8, 2015
The Rich Unemployed Greek Story
"Focus" carried an interesting news piece on Greece today.....tax corruption.
Somewhere in the heart of the news item was this unemployed guy. Somehow for 2014....he had tossed 937,000 Euro into his regular bank account last year. The tax folks simply skimmed over various accounts and came to his house....asking him where exactly this money came from. Well....he's not answering.
For several months, I've been following the Greece thing and the terrible woes that they've got. Frankly, I don't buy this 'broke' story.
If you go into Athens and drive around the city itself, there's tons of money moving around in the economy each day. Expensive motorcycles...sports cars from Germany....$250,000 tourist buses being operated.....Rolex watches being sold.....Greeks walking the streets in 1,000-Euro shoes....Europeans strolling through various shops and spending 300 Euros on t-shirts, fake statues from China, and expensive Greek sweets....etc.
Where does a guy get 937,000 Euro in one year? It's hard to say. Maybe he's selling dope on the side. Maybe he's got a unlicensed chauffeur service for VIPs. Maybe he's selling jewelry on the side that he imports quietly in from Egypt with no VAT. Maybe he pilots a boat for the ultra rich. Maybe he has a art shop in the tourist district of Athens.
The claim of being unemployed? Greek technology isn't sophisticated enough to figure out the guy's gimmick.....so if he doesn't volunteer the information.....I don't think they will figure his background out.
As for the 937,000 Euro? They will go back and look at 2013, 2012, etc. Bank records might go back ten years. If the guy never declared anything and has been unemployed for five years....with close to five million in some type of income.....they will establish the tax and then come to a fine (maybe ten-percent....maybe twenty-percent), and then a jail period. My humble guess is that it'll become something of a trend and start to worry folks.
If the guy is lucky.....he'll get to keep half the money.
As for hiding the 937,000 for next year? Well, this is the intriguing part of the whole thing. Guys will have to figure out the next way of moving your money around.....without banks being involved. You'd have to acquire a safe.....think ahead of the process.....and now have to worry about the government taking your money.
The Germans? Oh, they will sit there and just grin. They said there was cash there and there was no need for them to get into this Greek business. They've been proven correct.
Somewhere in the heart of the news item was this unemployed guy. Somehow for 2014....he had tossed 937,000 Euro into his regular bank account last year. The tax folks simply skimmed over various accounts and came to his house....asking him where exactly this money came from. Well....he's not answering.
For several months, I've been following the Greece thing and the terrible woes that they've got. Frankly, I don't buy this 'broke' story.
If you go into Athens and drive around the city itself, there's tons of money moving around in the economy each day. Expensive motorcycles...sports cars from Germany....$250,000 tourist buses being operated.....Rolex watches being sold.....Greeks walking the streets in 1,000-Euro shoes....Europeans strolling through various shops and spending 300 Euros on t-shirts, fake statues from China, and expensive Greek sweets....etc.
Where does a guy get 937,000 Euro in one year? It's hard to say. Maybe he's selling dope on the side. Maybe he's got a unlicensed chauffeur service for VIPs. Maybe he's selling jewelry on the side that he imports quietly in from Egypt with no VAT. Maybe he pilots a boat for the ultra rich. Maybe he has a art shop in the tourist district of Athens.
The claim of being unemployed? Greek technology isn't sophisticated enough to figure out the guy's gimmick.....so if he doesn't volunteer the information.....I don't think they will figure his background out.
As for the 937,000 Euro? They will go back and look at 2013, 2012, etc. Bank records might go back ten years. If the guy never declared anything and has been unemployed for five years....with close to five million in some type of income.....they will establish the tax and then come to a fine (maybe ten-percent....maybe twenty-percent), and then a jail period. My humble guess is that it'll become something of a trend and start to worry folks.
If the guy is lucky.....he'll get to keep half the money.
As for hiding the 937,000 for next year? Well, this is the intriguing part of the whole thing. Guys will have to figure out the next way of moving your money around.....without banks being involved. You'd have to acquire a safe.....think ahead of the process.....and now have to worry about the government taking your money.
The Germans? Oh, they will sit there and just grin. They said there was cash there and there was no need for them to get into this Greek business. They've been proven correct.
Friday, August 7, 2015
The 20-Euro a Day Idea
Over the past day, this unusual idea has been put forward by Green Party and FDP (opposition to the current gov't). They suggest that any private citizen who steps forward and volunteers to take a refugee under their 'wing' (meaning house and home), the private citizen would get 20-Euro per day, per individual.
You can kinda figure it this way.....family of three refugees. Huns has a studio apartment in his garage and say fine.....he'll take the three. Huns would make 1,800 Euro a month. The idea though would come with a limit....say three months.
So, Huns would turn 5,400 Euro for three months of mostly nothing except allowing the family live in this 'bare-bones' garage studio apartment? Yeah.
How many folks would volunteer for this? I'm not that sure. First, you'd have neighbors who'd get fussy that you brought foreign refugees into the neighborhood.
Oddly, you could be some guy with an apartment building in the middle of nowhere.....eight empty apartments that just won't rent out. So you agree to take eight families of four people each....you could be talking about 2,400 Euro a month per apartment, times eight.....almost 20,000 Euro....a month. Every three months.....you get a new crew and start fresh. In this case, I think there's probably at least two or three thousand such landlords around the country who would take the government up on this deal.....just for fast and significant cash.
Will it pass? Public support won't be in favor of this, and it'll mean the government has to find more cash reserves.....which barely exist for the marginal programs they run now. I won't give it more than a fifty-fifty shot.
You can kinda figure it this way.....family of three refugees. Huns has a studio apartment in his garage and say fine.....he'll take the three. Huns would make 1,800 Euro a month. The idea though would come with a limit....say three months.
So, Huns would turn 5,400 Euro for three months of mostly nothing except allowing the family live in this 'bare-bones' garage studio apartment? Yeah.
How many folks would volunteer for this? I'm not that sure. First, you'd have neighbors who'd get fussy that you brought foreign refugees into the neighborhood.
Oddly, you could be some guy with an apartment building in the middle of nowhere.....eight empty apartments that just won't rent out. So you agree to take eight families of four people each....you could be talking about 2,400 Euro a month per apartment, times eight.....almost 20,000 Euro....a month. Every three months.....you get a new crew and start fresh. In this case, I think there's probably at least two or three thousand such landlords around the country who would take the government up on this deal.....just for fast and significant cash.
Will it pass? Public support won't be in favor of this, and it'll mean the government has to find more cash reserves.....which barely exist for the marginal programs they run now. I won't give it more than a fifty-fifty shot.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Explaining the Netzpolitik Affair
If you've been following the German news of the past week, you might notice that it's summer vacation and there's really not much there to report on. Well....it ought to be that way, but the journalists (newspaper and media) have found the Netzpolitik Affair, and it's a one-star marginal story but it's the best they can hang onto.
The basic story?
After the Snowden thing of last year in Germany.....there was some talk of Germany getting too much into NSA's pattern of reviewing email and communications or allowing the NSA to review everything. Gripes were tossed onto the Merkel government....it wasn't right to be so close to the NSA and violate ethics.
Weeks and months went by. In the early spring of this year.....this blogger group in Germany.....Netzpolitik (not really known for much except political stories) got ahold of a secret document which basically says that the German security folks will ramp-up their review of emails and digital messages.
Netzpolitik hypes up their distaste for this and how this secret info says a lot.
Well....the German government woke up and asked.....where did you get the secret correspondence? No answer.
A state prosecutor got involved and started charges of some type.
Oh my.....that got people peeved, and thinking back to the 1960s when German journalists were arrested and held for months over acquiring secret info. Laws were in place to protect journalists. Amusingly enough, laws are also there to protect classified information. Which law ranks higher? No one says.
Last week, the Justice Department of Germany got involved....it's run by the SPD. And they basically told the prosecutor involved.....he was to retire (he was 66 and probably accepting of the 'push'). The hint here by the Justice Ministry was that it just wasn't right, and they'd lost respect for the poor prosecutor involved. I think one journalist even wrote 'toxic atmosphere' into their report of the mess.
You'd think it was over now. Well...no, it's still brewing.
The Netzpolitik folks are still reporting away on this. The state-run TV folks are running with this as their lead-in story for the last two nights. Everyone seems hyped up....over a story that doesn't really matter to 99.9-percent of the German public.
The potential thought that the Justice Ministry might have to fire their top guy (a SPD guy) to show it wasn't a fair situation? This is oddly brought up now.
The end of the Netzpolitik mess? Well....no. There's still some investigation going on.
The other factor? No one mentions this one strange thing.
All of this comes from a leaked document that came either via the German secret network folks or the political apparatus. Who leaked?
If you ask this question.....you come to this odd thought.....if the NSA turned off your information gleaned by their sources of German emails.....then you'd have to ramp-up your own process and program (which is what this whole thing seems to say). If the NSA dumped the German intelligence folks.....wouldn't that be a shocker?
And if this occurred, wouldn't you want the German intelligence apparatus collecting and being ahead of the bad guys? Or is this all illegal and we should just wait till dead bodies are buried and act confused, then jerk around to fire government people because they weren't doing their jobs to protect the nation or it's people?
Is Netzpolitik telling half a story? I'm not sure about this, but they might have someone leading to an agenda, and it's all a theme for the 2017 election.
Basically, without any bad economic period and everyone hyped up on refugees and immigration issues......at least two political parties are in a sour mode right now and no way to get the public all hyped up on a friendly theme. Maybe this is what the secret document and Netzpolitik were there to do....just hype people, and we are watching this unfold as such.
The basic story?
After the Snowden thing of last year in Germany.....there was some talk of Germany getting too much into NSA's pattern of reviewing email and communications or allowing the NSA to review everything. Gripes were tossed onto the Merkel government....it wasn't right to be so close to the NSA and violate ethics.
Weeks and months went by. In the early spring of this year.....this blogger group in Germany.....Netzpolitik (not really known for much except political stories) got ahold of a secret document which basically says that the German security folks will ramp-up their review of emails and digital messages.
Netzpolitik hypes up their distaste for this and how this secret info says a lot.
Well....the German government woke up and asked.....where did you get the secret correspondence? No answer.
A state prosecutor got involved and started charges of some type.
Oh my.....that got people peeved, and thinking back to the 1960s when German journalists were arrested and held for months over acquiring secret info. Laws were in place to protect journalists. Amusingly enough, laws are also there to protect classified information. Which law ranks higher? No one says.
Last week, the Justice Department of Germany got involved....it's run by the SPD. And they basically told the prosecutor involved.....he was to retire (he was 66 and probably accepting of the 'push'). The hint here by the Justice Ministry was that it just wasn't right, and they'd lost respect for the poor prosecutor involved. I think one journalist even wrote 'toxic atmosphere' into their report of the mess.
You'd think it was over now. Well...no, it's still brewing.
The Netzpolitik folks are still reporting away on this. The state-run TV folks are running with this as their lead-in story for the last two nights. Everyone seems hyped up....over a story that doesn't really matter to 99.9-percent of the German public.
The potential thought that the Justice Ministry might have to fire their top guy (a SPD guy) to show it wasn't a fair situation? This is oddly brought up now.
The end of the Netzpolitik mess? Well....no. There's still some investigation going on.
The other factor? No one mentions this one strange thing.
All of this comes from a leaked document that came either via the German secret network folks or the political apparatus. Who leaked?
If you ask this question.....you come to this odd thought.....if the NSA turned off your information gleaned by their sources of German emails.....then you'd have to ramp-up your own process and program (which is what this whole thing seems to say). If the NSA dumped the German intelligence folks.....wouldn't that be a shocker?
And if this occurred, wouldn't you want the German intelligence apparatus collecting and being ahead of the bad guys? Or is this all illegal and we should just wait till dead bodies are buried and act confused, then jerk around to fire government people because they weren't doing their jobs to protect the nation or it's people?
Is Netzpolitik telling half a story? I'm not sure about this, but they might have someone leading to an agenda, and it's all a theme for the 2017 election.
Basically, without any bad economic period and everyone hyped up on refugees and immigration issues......at least two political parties are in a sour mode right now and no way to get the public all hyped up on a friendly theme. Maybe this is what the secret document and Netzpolitik were there to do....just hype people, and we are watching this unfold as such.
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