"Germany can be not Arab country. Germany is Germany."
-- Dalia Lama
It was a short interview with a journalist from the Frankfurt Newspaper. Basically the Dalia Lama says in a very clear and blunt way that even he thinks the number of refugees in Germany is too high. He does state....there is responsibility to help refugees....morally, it is correct. But this ought to be a temporary act and in the end....the refugees do what refugees typically do.....they go home when it's safe.
If you note the whole discussion in Germany....often missed by journalists....it's really about four different factors: immigration, refugees, asylum seekers, and integration.
No one cites numbers....because it'd really screw up the message, but if you went out and polled the incoming crowd of 1.1 million in 2015....I'd take a guess that roughly half of them were pure and simple refugees....looking for a safe temporary place and knowing that they'd get a square deal in Germany. Their long-term view? Non-existent and hoping to one day return home.
Anger about the Dalia Lama's words? Oh, I'd take a guess that 10,000 Germans are fuming tonight as they grasp what he said and how he said it.
You can have compassion, but at the end of the day.....it's a case of how you classify the guy in front of you.
As for making Germany into some Arab-like country.....again....as I've noted on various occasions, it's a comical mentality demonstrated by some on multiculturalism and thinking that you can make some environment that blends a look, a dynamic, a culture, and an acceptance into place for one single group. If 350,000 Chinese came into Germany next year for long-term placement and wanted to have their cultural icons in place (starting in urbanized areas).....there might be some heartburn and questions even for them.
The issue with this message is that it involves politics, and leads a number of Germans to ask questions. You can't readily sell multiculturalism across the entire country or political spectrum. At best....I think that maybe fifty percent of German society buys into this.
How far will the quote be used (Germany is Germany)?
If you were looking for a million-dollar quote for a political campaign....this is it.
But there is a further item of discussion here. Will the words of the Dalia Lama suddenly cause some intellectual Germans to sit down and pause over their arguments and vision? My humble belief is that some will have to sit...sip through a wine or two....and think over the commentary. What has the past two thousand years been about? What exactly is German culture? The progress of the past hundred years....what's it really about? Are you defending multiculturalism for a marginalized reason? What's the end-game for all this talk?
The problem is....we've just about destroyed both the CDU and SPD over this topic and there's not much room to retreat and build a different refugee policy. A 'reset' button really is needed but where the heck will you dig one up without confirming the AfD Party?
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Monday, May 30, 2016
Building a Failed Society
RBB (the Berlin public-run network) did an interesting piece on refugees and housing.
So, what can be said is that Berlin is overflowing with refugees (really, the issue is more that X number of applicants have gotten visas finally and ready to exit from the camps or refugee centers). This is when you need housing of a more permanent and upgraded nature.
The Berlin city government has determined the best way ahead was to go and procure on their own (using tax-payer money) a number of modular buildings. These aren't the steel container type, but they aren't exactly the type that would be around for a hundred years (like so many buildings built today).
Based on the type that I've seen in the past....these modular buildings are the type that you can develop a plot of land....bring in the pieces of the building, and assemble it in four weeks. When it's done, you have an apartment building with walls, a roof, and standard expectations. Typically, for the first couple of years....it's OK. Somewhere between five and ten years, there's some noted decline. Typically, around year fifteen to twenty....unless some refurbishment occurs....the building is heading toward ghetto status.
I've never seen a price-tag comparison on these modular buildings. Because of the speed in construction, I'm assuming it's probably half the cost of a normal building.
The city of Berlin was going to erect sixty of these modular buildings around the city. In fact, there were a number of meetings.....heated meetings I hint....where people questioned the location of these modular buildings around the city. For several months, I've followed this story off and on. The city council was often in conflict with neighborhood groups over this planning process.
So, we've come to a point now where they will erect only ten of the originally planned sixty modular buildings. Chief reason? What they say is that the huge numbers of refugees that they anticipated.....didn't come through. The downward trend from January....has reset the whole view on numbers.
But now, we've come to this odd change in the plan.
In the various meetings held....one complaint was that if these modular buildings were put up....would they also be used for regular Berlin people (the non-refugees)? It was a comment to slam the city council on the fact that they'd done nothing much for years for the homeless folks of Berlin....to include homeless families as well.
The change to the plan now incorporates the idea of a joint living circumstance....refugees and affordable housing candidates (yeah....the homeless).
There's a term for this which has been developed by the agenda folks....."mixing". The original use of the word meant that you created a neighborhood where rich, middle-income, and poor lived side by side. In an ideal world.....it works (at least on paper).
I sat and pondered upon this idea. Migrants and refugees really don't have any room to complain because it's all free living and a benefit by the German government....paid for by the German tax-payer. But if you sit and imagine this scene.....Mr X from such-and-such country has arrived with the family and is now on the process of integration and getting their life sorted out.
Next to Mr X, is Mr Y.....a German homeless guy (no family), who seems to be down on his luck.....a lot. He's got a free place to live, compliments of the German government and tax-payer.
As the weeks go by, Mr X will sit through integration classes and ask some stupid questions about life in Germany, and how these down-and-out folks (the ones living next door to him).....don't seem to be going anywhere. He'll comment to the instructor that several of the down-and-out folks sit around the park out front of the house....sipping beer from mid-morning on, and they don't seem to appreciate this great German lifestyle or the opportunities that exist.
The integration instructor (likely a Green Party guy) will talk of the great and wondrous opportunities that exist and that some need time to sort out their chaotic lifestyle. Some will take other paths to success. Mr X, being very appreciative of his new life, in a wonderful land such as Germany, won't be able to understand this situation. Day by day.....he continues to observe the neighbors and questions them on their work ethic.
At some point, the integration experts (the PhD types) will come to analyze this relationship and neighbor issue....finding that this really didn't work well. The immigrants and the homeless folks....in one central apartment complex....didn't fit well.
Books will be written about this 'experiment' and people will appear on German TV chat forums to explain about a failed concept.
Somewhere around twenty years from now....some Berlin city council will pay several million Euro for some demolition crew to dismantle these ten-odd modular buildings and just quietly close the chapter on this episode.
So, what can be said is that Berlin is overflowing with refugees (really, the issue is more that X number of applicants have gotten visas finally and ready to exit from the camps or refugee centers). This is when you need housing of a more permanent and upgraded nature.
The Berlin city government has determined the best way ahead was to go and procure on their own (using tax-payer money) a number of modular buildings. These aren't the steel container type, but they aren't exactly the type that would be around for a hundred years (like so many buildings built today).
Based on the type that I've seen in the past....these modular buildings are the type that you can develop a plot of land....bring in the pieces of the building, and assemble it in four weeks. When it's done, you have an apartment building with walls, a roof, and standard expectations. Typically, for the first couple of years....it's OK. Somewhere between five and ten years, there's some noted decline. Typically, around year fifteen to twenty....unless some refurbishment occurs....the building is heading toward ghetto status.
I've never seen a price-tag comparison on these modular buildings. Because of the speed in construction, I'm assuming it's probably half the cost of a normal building.
The city of Berlin was going to erect sixty of these modular buildings around the city. In fact, there were a number of meetings.....heated meetings I hint....where people questioned the location of these modular buildings around the city. For several months, I've followed this story off and on. The city council was often in conflict with neighborhood groups over this planning process.
So, we've come to a point now where they will erect only ten of the originally planned sixty modular buildings. Chief reason? What they say is that the huge numbers of refugees that they anticipated.....didn't come through. The downward trend from January....has reset the whole view on numbers.
But now, we've come to this odd change in the plan.
In the various meetings held....one complaint was that if these modular buildings were put up....would they also be used for regular Berlin people (the non-refugees)? It was a comment to slam the city council on the fact that they'd done nothing much for years for the homeless folks of Berlin....to include homeless families as well.
The change to the plan now incorporates the idea of a joint living circumstance....refugees and affordable housing candidates (yeah....the homeless).
There's a term for this which has been developed by the agenda folks....."mixing". The original use of the word meant that you created a neighborhood where rich, middle-income, and poor lived side by side. In an ideal world.....it works (at least on paper).
I sat and pondered upon this idea. Migrants and refugees really don't have any room to complain because it's all free living and a benefit by the German government....paid for by the German tax-payer. But if you sit and imagine this scene.....Mr X from such-and-such country has arrived with the family and is now on the process of integration and getting their life sorted out.
Next to Mr X, is Mr Y.....a German homeless guy (no family), who seems to be down on his luck.....a lot. He's got a free place to live, compliments of the German government and tax-payer.
As the weeks go by, Mr X will sit through integration classes and ask some stupid questions about life in Germany, and how these down-and-out folks (the ones living next door to him).....don't seem to be going anywhere. He'll comment to the instructor that several of the down-and-out folks sit around the park out front of the house....sipping beer from mid-morning on, and they don't seem to appreciate this great German lifestyle or the opportunities that exist.
The integration instructor (likely a Green Party guy) will talk of the great and wondrous opportunities that exist and that some need time to sort out their chaotic lifestyle. Some will take other paths to success. Mr X, being very appreciative of his new life, in a wonderful land such as Germany, won't be able to understand this situation. Day by day.....he continues to observe the neighbors and questions them on their work ethic.
At some point, the integration experts (the PhD types) will come to analyze this relationship and neighbor issue....finding that this really didn't work well. The immigrants and the homeless folks....in one central apartment complex....didn't fit well.
Books will be written about this 'experiment' and people will appear on German TV chat forums to explain about a failed concept.
Somewhere around twenty years from now....some Berlin city council will pay several million Euro for some demolition crew to dismantle these ten-odd modular buildings and just quietly close the chapter on this episode.
Swiss Vote Coming Up
On the 5th of June in Switzerland.....people will vote on this odd idea. To set a minimum life wage of 2500 Euro a month for each adult. It would mean that if you unemployed.....the state would simply hand you your wage of 2,500 Euro each month, and it would not mean welfare.
A serious vote or just a play on words?
The guys who came up with this idea....have not exactly thought the whole thing through. For example, for such a small country.....they haven't said in absolute terms what this magic number for the state might add up to.
Several countries have picked up on this idea....mostly for discussions. The odds of this passing? I'd give it no better than a 30-percent chance. Few newspapers are saying much on it, and it lacks public support.
If you've never been to Switzerland....it's one of those countries that you just don't find poor people around on the streets. From the five or six times that I've been through the country.....you kinda admire the culture and society. Houses are kept up.....streets are maintained....parks are first-class. Does all of this hide some welfare class? Unknown. I will vouch for this.....it is expensive to live in Switzerland. I'd say if you were bad off and unemployed....you'd be in a tough country to survive.
Does the renaming of this money really fix anything? That's the curious thing about what they will vote on. It's called a wage....not welfare. If the state pays you a wage.....typically, you are doing work for them. For me....if I were the local mayor....I'd be putting you to work....mowing grass, hauling leaves, wiping down windows on city hall. If you ask me....it's opening up a mess of problems down the road if you pass this draft law.
A serious vote or just a play on words?
The guys who came up with this idea....have not exactly thought the whole thing through. For example, for such a small country.....they haven't said in absolute terms what this magic number for the state might add up to.
Several countries have picked up on this idea....mostly for discussions. The odds of this passing? I'd give it no better than a 30-percent chance. Few newspapers are saying much on it, and it lacks public support.
If you've never been to Switzerland....it's one of those countries that you just don't find poor people around on the streets. From the five or six times that I've been through the country.....you kinda admire the culture and society. Houses are kept up.....streets are maintained....parks are first-class. Does all of this hide some welfare class? Unknown. I will vouch for this.....it is expensive to live in Switzerland. I'd say if you were bad off and unemployed....you'd be in a tough country to survive.
Does the renaming of this money really fix anything? That's the curious thing about what they will vote on. It's called a wage....not welfare. If the state pays you a wage.....typically, you are doing work for them. For me....if I were the local mayor....I'd be putting you to work....mowing grass, hauling leaves, wiping down windows on city hall. If you ask me....it's opening up a mess of problems down the road if you pass this draft law.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
The Wilhelm III What-If Years
In mid-summer 2013.....I started to pick up six different books going over WW I, the Kaiser, the 1800s Germany, and the general culture of the period around the war.
There is no doubt that WW I resets German politics and puts a harsh reality upon most Germans. The Germans without the war, in some 'what-if' situation?
I have no doubt that a Kaiser-dominated German government would have continued on, with Prussian military authority as a key part of the government.
If they'd avoided using the Austrian assassination as a lead-in to a European conflict.....I think they would have simply found another episode three years or ten years later for some orchestrated conflict to tie up loose political issues within Germany.
A smaller and more direct conflict....just against Austria, or just against Russia.....might have prevented the massive world war scenario.
Few people realize that the Kaiser, after leaving Germany in 1919, survived on til 1941 in Huis Doorn, Utrechtse Heuvelrug, Netherlands....his health only declining in the mid-1930s.
The son? Wilhelm III? Well, this gets into an interesting side story. The crown prince was already noted in 1901 as heaving a healthy appetite for women (numerous women in fact).....at the age of 19.
You can go through the next twenty years and find that Wilhelm III's chief interest was soccer (he helped in the start-up of the German Football Association in 1908 (he actually paid for the cup to be awarded) and tennis.
What happened after the family was sent out of Germany? This gets to being interesting as well. Wilhelm III got into German politics....at least in the discussion of such things. By 1932, turning fifty....he actually got into some talks of running for the office of Reichspräsident, under the umbrella as a right-wing candidate. The opposing and assured winner was Paul von Hindenburg. For some reason, Wilhelm III's father got into this discussion and really didn't want the son (as royality and assumed prince-to-be-Kaiser one day.....to be an elected official. So he dropped out.
It should be noted....for the 1932 election....Wilhelm III strongly endorsed the Nazi Party.
Two years would pass after the Nazi win in November of 1932, and the night of the "Long Knives" occurred. A friend and associate of Wilhelm III.....Kurt von Schleicher....former Chancellor of Germany....was assassinated by Nazi enthusiasts. Wilhelm III had known von Schleicher for years and this one event changed his entire perception of the Nazi rise to power.
From 1934 on....Wilhelm III simply stayed in the background and never really participated in any government talks. The rumors of Hitler before 1934....that maybe the royal family could be brought back into Germany and be part of some future monarchy? Simply rumors.....they never went anywhere.
Wilhelm III, without the WW I conflict? He would have been there in 1941 to assume the position of Kaiser.....at age fifty-nine years old. He might have been a different style of Kaiser, and maybe by this point....smarter than his father.
It should be noted....by early 1945....Wilhelm III had serious health issues (gall bladder and liver). One might guess that he had a fair amount of alcohol consumption throughout his life. And he ended up passing away ten years after his father. His last six years was mostly as a war criminal and held under house arrest....never being charged but never being allowed any freedom.
Germany has a a number of positives and negatives without WW I. The US depression period (which has a world effect) would still affect German economics, and bring a harsh reality into Germany for the 1930s. Without WW I, there is no WW II. Hitler? He probably ends up married in the mid-20's to some Munich gal with a taste for culture, running some house-painting service, and often hanging out at art museums in Munich to criticize modern art.
What-if situations are always curious to lay out, but they never seem to really answer any questions. We are left with what did happen.
There is no doubt that WW I resets German politics and puts a harsh reality upon most Germans. The Germans without the war, in some 'what-if' situation?
I have no doubt that a Kaiser-dominated German government would have continued on, with Prussian military authority as a key part of the government.
If they'd avoided using the Austrian assassination as a lead-in to a European conflict.....I think they would have simply found another episode three years or ten years later for some orchestrated conflict to tie up loose political issues within Germany.
A smaller and more direct conflict....just against Austria, or just against Russia.....might have prevented the massive world war scenario.
Few people realize that the Kaiser, after leaving Germany in 1919, survived on til 1941 in Huis Doorn, Utrechtse Heuvelrug, Netherlands....his health only declining in the mid-1930s.
The son? Wilhelm III? Well, this gets into an interesting side story. The crown prince was already noted in 1901 as heaving a healthy appetite for women (numerous women in fact).....at the age of 19.
You can go through the next twenty years and find that Wilhelm III's chief interest was soccer (he helped in the start-up of the German Football Association in 1908 (he actually paid for the cup to be awarded) and tennis.
What happened after the family was sent out of Germany? This gets to being interesting as well. Wilhelm III got into German politics....at least in the discussion of such things. By 1932, turning fifty....he actually got into some talks of running for the office of Reichspräsident, under the umbrella as a right-wing candidate. The opposing and assured winner was Paul von Hindenburg. For some reason, Wilhelm III's father got into this discussion and really didn't want the son (as royality and assumed prince-to-be-Kaiser one day.....to be an elected official. So he dropped out.
It should be noted....for the 1932 election....Wilhelm III strongly endorsed the Nazi Party.
Two years would pass after the Nazi win in November of 1932, and the night of the "Long Knives" occurred. A friend and associate of Wilhelm III.....Kurt von Schleicher....former Chancellor of Germany....was assassinated by Nazi enthusiasts. Wilhelm III had known von Schleicher for years and this one event changed his entire perception of the Nazi rise to power.
From 1934 on....Wilhelm III simply stayed in the background and never really participated in any government talks. The rumors of Hitler before 1934....that maybe the royal family could be brought back into Germany and be part of some future monarchy? Simply rumors.....they never went anywhere.
Wilhelm III, without the WW I conflict? He would have been there in 1941 to assume the position of Kaiser.....at age fifty-nine years old. He might have been a different style of Kaiser, and maybe by this point....smarter than his father.
It should be noted....by early 1945....Wilhelm III had serious health issues (gall bladder and liver). One might guess that he had a fair amount of alcohol consumption throughout his life. And he ended up passing away ten years after his father. His last six years was mostly as a war criminal and held under house arrest....never being charged but never being allowed any freedom.
Germany has a a number of positives and negatives without WW I. The US depression period (which has a world effect) would still affect German economics, and bring a harsh reality into Germany for the 1930s. Without WW I, there is no WW II. Hitler? He probably ends up married in the mid-20's to some Munich gal with a taste for culture, running some house-painting service, and often hanging out at art museums in Munich to criticize modern art.
What-if situations are always curious to lay out, but they never seem to really answer any questions. We are left with what did happen.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
The Cake Episode
The party boss of the Linke Party in Germany is Sahra Wagenknecht. If you've ever spent some time watching chat forums.....she's one of the more clever and responsive political minds in Germany....sadly, she's left-wing (to the extreme).
Last night, the Linke Party started a weekend party meeting and in the midst of things.....some left-wing radicals came up near Wagenknecht and popped a cake in her face. Pictures taken and she's kinda peeved about the matter.
You see....of the top five folks associated with the Linke Party, she's the only one for the past six months who has chatted about immigration and said that the current SPD-CDU program, Merkel's vision, is a failure and there needs to be fewer immigrants entering the country.
The issue is.....the current Linke Party position on immigration is that all people have the right to enter Germany, while they agree that the Merkel program under the CDU and SPD has been a failure. Beyond that.....they say mostly nothing about how to fix this other than pushing more money into it and correcting the shelter discrepancies.
The party in the past week has even gone to the extent of a statement which says that they support immigration and can't understand why they are losing votes in the state elections of the past six months. Obliviously.....as they say.....people just aren't getting the message and understanding what the message is about. Wagenknecht looks at the message and you can tell....she's just not charged up about it or thinking it'll ever work. Immigration is hurting the working class German guy....with no doubt.
What might happen after this cake-episode weekend?
There are two state elections in the fall in eastern Germany. Normally, in Berlin....for state polling from last time.....the Linke Party ought to clear 11.6 percent. In Meckinburg, the Linke Party polled 18.4 percent. At the very least....they ought to get the same votes as last time (2011). Frankly, I'm not of the opinion that they will have that much success....mostly because of the immigration and asylum business.
For Meckenburg, they likely will go from 18.4 percent (2011) to 9-percent (losing half of their support). For Berlin, I think the 11.6 percent of 2011....will drop to around seven to nine percent.
Wagenknecht might look at things, the polling ahead and just quietly say that the Linke Party with it's attachment to immigration will not survive well in the federal race of 2017. I kinda anticipate by December that she will step away, quit and resign from the party.
Maybe I'm wrong on this but a month later.....I think she will show up in the Saarland and team with the local AfD Party to go after a major voting win in March (their state election). The Linke Party did well in 2012 in the Saarland, with 16-percent. With the immigration trend, and Wagenknecht as the PR front for AfD? I think they could easily take 25-percent, and the Linke Party suffer a massive loss of vote (maybe half as many as in 2012).
At that point, you really have to wonder about the two other German state elections in 2017, and how the Linke Party might be walking toward a 4.9-percent national win....which means they won't be part of the Bundestag (if they don't clear 5.0 percent nationally).
If you reshuffled the deck in the 2017 national election, and suddenly the Linke Party was not a significant player....you really start to see a totally different election. It's possible to see a 25-to-30 percent win for AfD....maybe not enough to be the clear-cut winner but it really puts a tough coalition situation in place for the CDU.
So, maybe the cake in the face of Wagenknecht might reset the deck in some ways. The Linke Party doesn't really represent the working class guy anymore. It's almost a Green Party-Lite type organization that pretends to be extremely socialist and pro-worker. If you were to dig up the common member of the group from the 1990s....he'd probably say that they don't represent him anymore and he doesn't really know who they represent.
Last night, the Linke Party started a weekend party meeting and in the midst of things.....some left-wing radicals came up near Wagenknecht and popped a cake in her face. Pictures taken and she's kinda peeved about the matter.
You see....of the top five folks associated with the Linke Party, she's the only one for the past six months who has chatted about immigration and said that the current SPD-CDU program, Merkel's vision, is a failure and there needs to be fewer immigrants entering the country.
The issue is.....the current Linke Party position on immigration is that all people have the right to enter Germany, while they agree that the Merkel program under the CDU and SPD has been a failure. Beyond that.....they say mostly nothing about how to fix this other than pushing more money into it and correcting the shelter discrepancies.
The party in the past week has even gone to the extent of a statement which says that they support immigration and can't understand why they are losing votes in the state elections of the past six months. Obliviously.....as they say.....people just aren't getting the message and understanding what the message is about. Wagenknecht looks at the message and you can tell....she's just not charged up about it or thinking it'll ever work. Immigration is hurting the working class German guy....with no doubt.
What might happen after this cake-episode weekend?
There are two state elections in the fall in eastern Germany. Normally, in Berlin....for state polling from last time.....the Linke Party ought to clear 11.6 percent. In Meckinburg, the Linke Party polled 18.4 percent. At the very least....they ought to get the same votes as last time (2011). Frankly, I'm not of the opinion that they will have that much success....mostly because of the immigration and asylum business.
For Meckenburg, they likely will go from 18.4 percent (2011) to 9-percent (losing half of their support). For Berlin, I think the 11.6 percent of 2011....will drop to around seven to nine percent.
Wagenknecht might look at things, the polling ahead and just quietly say that the Linke Party with it's attachment to immigration will not survive well in the federal race of 2017. I kinda anticipate by December that she will step away, quit and resign from the party.
Maybe I'm wrong on this but a month later.....I think she will show up in the Saarland and team with the local AfD Party to go after a major voting win in March (their state election). The Linke Party did well in 2012 in the Saarland, with 16-percent. With the immigration trend, and Wagenknecht as the PR front for AfD? I think they could easily take 25-percent, and the Linke Party suffer a massive loss of vote (maybe half as many as in 2012).
At that point, you really have to wonder about the two other German state elections in 2017, and how the Linke Party might be walking toward a 4.9-percent national win....which means they won't be part of the Bundestag (if they don't clear 5.0 percent nationally).
If you reshuffled the deck in the 2017 national election, and suddenly the Linke Party was not a significant player....you really start to see a totally different election. It's possible to see a 25-to-30 percent win for AfD....maybe not enough to be the clear-cut winner but it really puts a tough coalition situation in place for the CDU.
So, maybe the cake in the face of Wagenknecht might reset the deck in some ways. The Linke Party doesn't really represent the working class guy anymore. It's almost a Green Party-Lite type organization that pretends to be extremely socialist and pro-worker. If you were to dig up the common member of the group from the 1990s....he'd probably say that they don't represent him anymore and he doesn't really know who they represent.
Germany as a Monopoly Game
I came to this moment of realization today....of fitting life in Germany for a non-German into a Monopoly-style game.
So, after a fair amount of pondering.....I came to these observations if I were to design it as a table game.
First, there'd have to be approximately 19,500 rules to the game. Some would be written down....some would be unwritten and simply explained at inappropriate times by a German himself. Some rules would date back to 238 AD and Roman times. Some would date back to 1619 and the Thirty Years War. Some would date back to the Nazi era. And some would date back to 1978 and some freaked out Bundestag bureaucratic era.
Second, there would be twelve different dice rolled, and each of the potential dice would have six different settings, tied to six different landscapes, tied to six different religious or cultural settings, tied to six different economic failures or successes, tied to six different tax interpretations, tied to six different perverse sexual settings, tied to six different degrees of German creativeness. The move after the twelve dice rolled and results displayed....would require nine minutes of thinking over the dozen dice rules and how you could screw up on just one single bad dice display.
Third, there'd be no winner or loser. You could play for fourteen hours straight, and eventually come to realize that the most you could get at the end is 750 Euro a month on a pension, and end up living in some old folks home run by Russian mobsters.
Fourth, the bonus card series during the game offers six potential bonus cards: (1) a five-star cheesecake with gourmet coffee, (2) six minutes of sitting in a train cabin with neo-Nazi skinhead, (3) an entry into a fest tent in Munich where an urgent visit to the bathroom reveals mostly throw-up and urine over the floor of the toilet, (4) a chance to sit for an hour with four intellectuals explaining why you are so stupid, (5) a chance to be the first person to fly out of BER (the Berlin airport that is forever under renovation and further work before allowing a flight to occur), or (6) a chance to sit for two hours in a traffic stau between Frankfurt and Koln in the midst of July's heat period.
Fifth, a potential punishment phase often arriving on the board with three key phases of German life often being the reward: (1) riding on a German modern train in the summer with a failing AC unit and sitting there in 99-F temperatures while you sweat in comfort, (2) listening to an hour of political chat on pension reform by nine different German political figures, and (3) paying a 17.50 Euro monthly fee for TV options via state-run TV which just make you laugh and cry at the same time.
Sixth, the symbology for the game pieces? All ultra-highend cars like BMW, Audi, Porsche or Mercedes. There's a diesel VW game piece, but whoever gets it....usually loses in the end, one way or another.
Seventh, about every eighth move, you'd land on some German cop or German tax-man position. It'll be a roadblock, a alcohol-stop, a customs audit of your car's contents, or a review of your speed. Ninety percent of the time.....you survive with no problem.
Eighth, while in the process of playing the game, you notice several non-Germans have entered the room and appear to be in some state of playing the game....when they slip in and out of the room, and seem to be in some stage of pretending to play the game. To be honest, they don't care for the 9,500 rules, the lack of substance for winning, or the continued necessity to always play the game (day in and day out).
Ninth, you notice after a while that environmentalists seem to write most of the rules.
Tenth, for some reason, you always play the game better when consuming German beer....in abundance.
Eleventh, you notice after a while.....it seems more fulfilling playing this game.....after eating a full and complete German dinner of schnitzel and pan-fried potatoes.
Twelfth, after you've played the game for a while, you learn never to utter Hitler or Nazis while with other game players.
Thirteenth, you learn after a while that while playing the game....it's best to always carry change with you because there are no such things as a free-toilet and Germans freak out if you urinate against a tree or the side of a building.
Fourteenth, Players of the game seem to be urged to freak out when the words "Trump", "capitalism", "EU", "free trade", "Islam", "nuclear power", "republic", "Greece" or "diesel" are uttered.
Fifteenth. after a couple of rounds of play....you eventually learn that it's best never to win any money because it'd just be taxed out of existence.
Sixteenth. Integration gets uttered often during the game....to the point that you start to notice that some emigrants seem to know more about German history and law, than native Germans themselves. You'd like to discuss this with a German but eventually learn that during this particular game....such discussions are frowned upon and discouraged.
Seventeenth. As part of the game strategy....you continually need to spend all the money in the big public pot of money....even if it's for one-star marginalized art, 300-million Euro renovation project worth 50 million in value, or a fine traffic circle that leads only back to the original road you started from. You ask about transparency rules or suggest audit threats to correct bad spending behavior in the game, but discover that the rule-makers really hate making those kind of rules.
The game is typically played by eighty-one million players, and some will admit after a while, it's very entertaining.....at least in their mind. A handful of folks will admit in public that they'd like to expand the 19,500 rules to 66,000 rules....smiling as they say that.
So, after a fair amount of pondering.....I came to these observations if I were to design it as a table game.
First, there'd have to be approximately 19,500 rules to the game. Some would be written down....some would be unwritten and simply explained at inappropriate times by a German himself. Some rules would date back to 238 AD and Roman times. Some would date back to 1619 and the Thirty Years War. Some would date back to the Nazi era. And some would date back to 1978 and some freaked out Bundestag bureaucratic era.
Second, there would be twelve different dice rolled, and each of the potential dice would have six different settings, tied to six different landscapes, tied to six different religious or cultural settings, tied to six different economic failures or successes, tied to six different tax interpretations, tied to six different perverse sexual settings, tied to six different degrees of German creativeness. The move after the twelve dice rolled and results displayed....would require nine minutes of thinking over the dozen dice rules and how you could screw up on just one single bad dice display.
Third, there'd be no winner or loser. You could play for fourteen hours straight, and eventually come to realize that the most you could get at the end is 750 Euro a month on a pension, and end up living in some old folks home run by Russian mobsters.
Fourth, the bonus card series during the game offers six potential bonus cards: (1) a five-star cheesecake with gourmet coffee, (2) six minutes of sitting in a train cabin with neo-Nazi skinhead, (3) an entry into a fest tent in Munich where an urgent visit to the bathroom reveals mostly throw-up and urine over the floor of the toilet, (4) a chance to sit for an hour with four intellectuals explaining why you are so stupid, (5) a chance to be the first person to fly out of BER (the Berlin airport that is forever under renovation and further work before allowing a flight to occur), or (6) a chance to sit for two hours in a traffic stau between Frankfurt and Koln in the midst of July's heat period.
Fifth, a potential punishment phase often arriving on the board with three key phases of German life often being the reward: (1) riding on a German modern train in the summer with a failing AC unit and sitting there in 99-F temperatures while you sweat in comfort, (2) listening to an hour of political chat on pension reform by nine different German political figures, and (3) paying a 17.50 Euro monthly fee for TV options via state-run TV which just make you laugh and cry at the same time.
Sixth, the symbology for the game pieces? All ultra-highend cars like BMW, Audi, Porsche or Mercedes. There's a diesel VW game piece, but whoever gets it....usually loses in the end, one way or another.
Seventh, about every eighth move, you'd land on some German cop or German tax-man position. It'll be a roadblock, a alcohol-stop, a customs audit of your car's contents, or a review of your speed. Ninety percent of the time.....you survive with no problem.
Eighth, while in the process of playing the game, you notice several non-Germans have entered the room and appear to be in some state of playing the game....when they slip in and out of the room, and seem to be in some stage of pretending to play the game. To be honest, they don't care for the 9,500 rules, the lack of substance for winning, or the continued necessity to always play the game (day in and day out).
Ninth, you notice after a while that environmentalists seem to write most of the rules.
Tenth, for some reason, you always play the game better when consuming German beer....in abundance.
Eleventh, you notice after a while.....it seems more fulfilling playing this game.....after eating a full and complete German dinner of schnitzel and pan-fried potatoes.
Twelfth, after you've played the game for a while, you learn never to utter Hitler or Nazis while with other game players.
Thirteenth, you learn after a while that while playing the game....it's best to always carry change with you because there are no such things as a free-toilet and Germans freak out if you urinate against a tree or the side of a building.
Fourteenth, Players of the game seem to be urged to freak out when the words "Trump", "capitalism", "EU", "free trade", "Islam", "nuclear power", "republic", "Greece" or "diesel" are uttered.
Fifteenth. after a couple of rounds of play....you eventually learn that it's best never to win any money because it'd just be taxed out of existence.
Sixteenth. Integration gets uttered often during the game....to the point that you start to notice that some emigrants seem to know more about German history and law, than native Germans themselves. You'd like to discuss this with a German but eventually learn that during this particular game....such discussions are frowned upon and discouraged.
Seventeenth. As part of the game strategy....you continually need to spend all the money in the big public pot of money....even if it's for one-star marginalized art, 300-million Euro renovation project worth 50 million in value, or a fine traffic circle that leads only back to the original road you started from. You ask about transparency rules or suggest audit threats to correct bad spending behavior in the game, but discover that the rule-makers really hate making those kind of rules.
The game is typically played by eighty-one million players, and some will admit after a while, it's very entertaining.....at least in their mind. A handful of folks will admit in public that they'd like to expand the 19,500 rules to 66,000 rules....smiling as they say that.
The Whole Story
Sometimes....when you dig into a story.....you come to realize that there is more to it....than a news service provided. This occurred with me today, and the story of a German Protestant Church holding a funeral for a Islamic guy. A local news source really told the bulk of this story.
There's a fair amount of outage in Hamburg and throughout Germany over this funeral episode.
What can be said is that a 17-year-old "kid" ended up as a Islamic guy fighting for ISIS in Syria. He died, and the decision was made by the local pastor in Hamburg...Sieghard Wilm of the Saint Pauli Church to hold a service for him. It should be noted....it's not really a Muslim funeral, as one might imagine.
Anger and hostility? Yes. Locals got pretty frustrated with this and have vented their anger at the church and the pastor involved.
The story made it across the Atlantic and is prime news in the US market as well.
Most say that a Muslim guy should not end up with a Christian environment funeral, and that the pastor was absolutely wrong in what he did.
Wilm has said as much as he could.....trying to explain and defend the position of the church. I'm taking a guess that some folks in the Hamburg area who were church-tax-payers.....might quit, and it might have some affect across Germany.
But, we come to the 'rest of the story' as I observe the bigger picture here.
This kid? 'Florent' was a German-immigrant of sorts.....(not a refugee or Turk). He'd come to Germany as an infant from Cameron and been adopted by a German family.
At some point within the last three years....he got curious into Islam (he was in a Christian family) and ended up converting into Islam. Weeks later, the local enthusiastic religious scholar scores big as 'Florent' drops his education and stable life in Germany, and heads off to Syria for a glorious campaign to fight the evilness standing against ISIS. The mere fact that he would be fighting other Muslims.....never did register in his mind, nor do I think the religious scholar in Hamburg ever explain that detail to the kid.
So the kid arrives in Syria back in July of last year. The family, in particular the mother (as the pastor explains to the local press in Hamburg).....believed that 'Florent' quickly came to realize what he'd stepped into and how screwed up the situation really was.
The wrong path, criticism of Salafism behavior, and the lack of any defensive training.....are cited by the mother in whatever communications that she had from her son.
Somewhere around 14 years old....'Florent' converted to being 'Balal'....identifying himself in the Middle Eastern culture. He survived roughly three years of this....before dying in Syria.
For fourteen years, this German family tried to raise 'Florent' and did it under the Christian umbrella. Based on misfortune and the lack of mature decisions by the young kid.....he's dead today. I kinda agree with the pastor....the family is Christian and would like for some memorial-type service to occur....to remember 'Florent' rather than 'Balal'. They probably deserve that right. You can talk all you want about this being a Muslim funeral, but it's to remember the Christian kid 'Forent', not Balal'.
Statues to remember these ISIS warriors? None. That's the one observation you can make after a while of observing radical Muslim ideology.....they don't bother remembering anyone who dies for their cause. You end up as a faceless and nameless creation.
There's a fair amount of outage in Hamburg and throughout Germany over this funeral episode.
What can be said is that a 17-year-old "kid" ended up as a Islamic guy fighting for ISIS in Syria. He died, and the decision was made by the local pastor in Hamburg...Sieghard Wilm of the Saint Pauli Church to hold a service for him. It should be noted....it's not really a Muslim funeral, as one might imagine.
Anger and hostility? Yes. Locals got pretty frustrated with this and have vented their anger at the church and the pastor involved.
The story made it across the Atlantic and is prime news in the US market as well.
Most say that a Muslim guy should not end up with a Christian environment funeral, and that the pastor was absolutely wrong in what he did.
Wilm has said as much as he could.....trying to explain and defend the position of the church. I'm taking a guess that some folks in the Hamburg area who were church-tax-payers.....might quit, and it might have some affect across Germany.
But, we come to the 'rest of the story' as I observe the bigger picture here.
This kid? 'Florent' was a German-immigrant of sorts.....(not a refugee or Turk). He'd come to Germany as an infant from Cameron and been adopted by a German family.
At some point within the last three years....he got curious into Islam (he was in a Christian family) and ended up converting into Islam. Weeks later, the local enthusiastic religious scholar scores big as 'Florent' drops his education and stable life in Germany, and heads off to Syria for a glorious campaign to fight the evilness standing against ISIS. The mere fact that he would be fighting other Muslims.....never did register in his mind, nor do I think the religious scholar in Hamburg ever explain that detail to the kid.
So the kid arrives in Syria back in July of last year. The family, in particular the mother (as the pastor explains to the local press in Hamburg).....believed that 'Florent' quickly came to realize what he'd stepped into and how screwed up the situation really was.
The wrong path, criticism of Salafism behavior, and the lack of any defensive training.....are cited by the mother in whatever communications that she had from her son.
Somewhere around 14 years old....'Florent' converted to being 'Balal'....identifying himself in the Middle Eastern culture. He survived roughly three years of this....before dying in Syria.
For fourteen years, this German family tried to raise 'Florent' and did it under the Christian umbrella. Based on misfortune and the lack of mature decisions by the young kid.....he's dead today. I kinda agree with the pastor....the family is Christian and would like for some memorial-type service to occur....to remember 'Florent' rather than 'Balal'. They probably deserve that right. You can talk all you want about this being a Muslim funeral, but it's to remember the Christian kid 'Forent', not Balal'.
Statues to remember these ISIS warriors? None. That's the one observation you can make after a while of observing radical Muslim ideology.....they don't bother remembering anyone who dies for their cause. You end up as a faceless and nameless creation.
TV Show Review
I have Netflix as an option here in Germany and am a participant.
About two weeks ago, I sat down and decided to watch a new Netflix-produced series called Marseille. It's a an eight-show series....set in southern France around Marseille.
To be kinda honest, I probably got about 30 minutes into the one-hour opener, and ended my viewing.
The script to this? Well....there's this old French guy (actually played by Gerald Depardieu) who is the declining mayor of Marseille. He's been there as mayor for twenty years and got himself a little empire established.
The city election is coming up and there's some former friend/associate/protege who has decided to play into the election. The old guy probably ought to gracefully retire and just enjoy his life remaining but this former friend is forcing him to play out another election.
The problem with new series is that we all kinda have a huge expectation of a "hook" which grabs you in the first part of episode one and really makes you interested in continued viewing.
Lost, the TV series, started this trend. The first twenty minutes of the series Lost was a game-changer for viewing TV series.
For the series Marseille? There just isn't anything much in the first thirty minutes that spells out interest or real attention-getting.
I thought that my negative feeling might have been unfair, but I noted over the week after viewing Marseille.....that most French newspapers and outlets also were negative. The script was weak....the dialog led to nowhere.....and it was mostly Depardeiu laid out in some scene against a grand landscape....uttering a line or two, and moving on.
Netflix probably got talked into this series.....thinking that someone could just throw together a reasonable script.....talk a big-name French actor into showing up....and get eight decent episodes which would lead onto a second and third season. Based on what I saw in the first episode.....they might ought to forget about additional seasons.
The thing is....there are tons of great stories and fine landscapes to run simple eight-episode season productions from Netflix. True, this was a failure but I would hope that they simply learn a lesson or two and continue on with more productions.
I can think of a dozen script ideas (Greeks in trouble, refugees, lost Nazi art, Nazi nukes, bought-off royal titles, Russian mafia episodes, and intellectuals forced into reality situations).
So, if you see Marseille listed on Netflix and just want to see landscape of Marseille, with the sound turned low.....then it might not be such a bad deal.
About two weeks ago, I sat down and decided to watch a new Netflix-produced series called Marseille. It's a an eight-show series....set in southern France around Marseille.
To be kinda honest, I probably got about 30 minutes into the one-hour opener, and ended my viewing.
The script to this? Well....there's this old French guy (actually played by Gerald Depardieu) who is the declining mayor of Marseille. He's been there as mayor for twenty years and got himself a little empire established.
The city election is coming up and there's some former friend/associate/protege who has decided to play into the election. The old guy probably ought to gracefully retire and just enjoy his life remaining but this former friend is forcing him to play out another election.
The problem with new series is that we all kinda have a huge expectation of a "hook" which grabs you in the first part of episode one and really makes you interested in continued viewing.
Lost, the TV series, started this trend. The first twenty minutes of the series Lost was a game-changer for viewing TV series.
For the series Marseille? There just isn't anything much in the first thirty minutes that spells out interest or real attention-getting.
I thought that my negative feeling might have been unfair, but I noted over the week after viewing Marseille.....that most French newspapers and outlets also were negative. The script was weak....the dialog led to nowhere.....and it was mostly Depardeiu laid out in some scene against a grand landscape....uttering a line or two, and moving on.
Netflix probably got talked into this series.....thinking that someone could just throw together a reasonable script.....talk a big-name French actor into showing up....and get eight decent episodes which would lead onto a second and third season. Based on what I saw in the first episode.....they might ought to forget about additional seasons.
The thing is....there are tons of great stories and fine landscapes to run simple eight-episode season productions from Netflix. True, this was a failure but I would hope that they simply learn a lesson or two and continue on with more productions.
I can think of a dozen script ideas (Greeks in trouble, refugees, lost Nazi art, Nazi nukes, bought-off royal titles, Russian mafia episodes, and intellectuals forced into reality situations).
So, if you see Marseille listed on Netflix and just want to see landscape of Marseille, with the sound turned low.....then it might not be such a bad deal.
Friday, May 27, 2016
ZDF and their Trump Report
I sat last night and watched ZDF (public-run Channel Two) and their late-night news. They had a four-minute 'hit' piece on Donald Trump.
They had practice this type of behavior back during the Bush years and simply dusted off their gimmicks....although in today's atmosphere.....it's the stuff that you'd expect from first-year university students and not some mature news organization.
At some point, they pulled out Trump's quote from last month where he talked of the possible exit of the US from NATO because it might not have value anymore. Then ZDF found some foundation expert who claimed this would put Europe at a terrible risk of conflict and it was the wrong thing to say or do.
It's an interesting slant for ZDF, because for two decades....they've been pushing signals and commentary that NATO wasn't necessary and the US could not be trusted as a partner, so here along comes Trump to deliver what they advocated to the German public and they quickly run back to the 1970s position of a need for NATO.
The reality of the NATO question is if the US leaves.....some type of major effort by the EU will have to occur.....rebuilding what they've allowed to occur since the 1990s. Frankly, the money isn't there and no one in the EU really has extra cash to pay for things like this.
As for the slam against Trump? I expect it to continue for the rest of the campaign, and IF he does win, they will swing around their media circus here in Germany and portray America as a risky friend. Their slant is that you need mature leadership like you have in Berlin today, with the grand coalition....to which you explain this in some German pub and all the old guys start laughing.
So, if you are an American....no matter if you are pro or anti Trump.....it's best to prepare now for the next round of anti-American slant updates on public-run TV in Germany. Unlike Bush who never said a word and just let things go on.....I suspect Trump already has a word or two (Goebbels-like, failed mental midget giants, or hyped-up Brown Shirts) that he'll dump to the NY Post when he wants to say something about the German news media.
Entertainment? Yeah.....it's taking the whole form of news, incitement, and slanted angles and turning it into a wrestling-show type reality show, that it really has become.
They had practice this type of behavior back during the Bush years and simply dusted off their gimmicks....although in today's atmosphere.....it's the stuff that you'd expect from first-year university students and not some mature news organization.
At some point, they pulled out Trump's quote from last month where he talked of the possible exit of the US from NATO because it might not have value anymore. Then ZDF found some foundation expert who claimed this would put Europe at a terrible risk of conflict and it was the wrong thing to say or do.
It's an interesting slant for ZDF, because for two decades....they've been pushing signals and commentary that NATO wasn't necessary and the US could not be trusted as a partner, so here along comes Trump to deliver what they advocated to the German public and they quickly run back to the 1970s position of a need for NATO.
The reality of the NATO question is if the US leaves.....some type of major effort by the EU will have to occur.....rebuilding what they've allowed to occur since the 1990s. Frankly, the money isn't there and no one in the EU really has extra cash to pay for things like this.
As for the slam against Trump? I expect it to continue for the rest of the campaign, and IF he does win, they will swing around their media circus here in Germany and portray America as a risky friend. Their slant is that you need mature leadership like you have in Berlin today, with the grand coalition....to which you explain this in some German pub and all the old guys start laughing.
So, if you are an American....no matter if you are pro or anti Trump.....it's best to prepare now for the next round of anti-American slant updates on public-run TV in Germany. Unlike Bush who never said a word and just let things go on.....I suspect Trump already has a word or two (Goebbels-like, failed mental midget giants, or hyped-up Brown Shirts) that he'll dump to the NY Post when he wants to say something about the German news media.
Entertainment? Yeah.....it's taking the whole form of news, incitement, and slanted angles and turning it into a wrestling-show type reality show, that it really has become.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
The EU Plan to Control Netflix
If you live in Germany, or in Europe, and have a taste for something better than what state-run TV or local commercial TV offers, then you have the option of Netflix, Amazon, or a dozen other services from your internet provider. They run anywhere from 8 Euro to 20 Euro a month.
What you typically find right now is that most Germans between the ages of 18 and 25....have signed up for at least one service. In general, they are giving up completely on public-run TV options, and barely accepting what options exist on commercial TV. It says a lot about the future of television and where things might be going in twenty years.
So, we have this thing going on with the EU. They've decided that they need to be in the middle of your TV network options via the internet. Naturally, you'd ask why, but this is the EU and they like to make sure that they seem important.
Their current game is to put together a draft law which says that twenty-percent of the content offered by Amazon or Netflix....MUST be made in Europe.
Why? This would ensure a European quality. I know....it sounds like BS.....but you need to think like the EU.
A problem? Not that much, at least for Netflix. They say presently....they are putting out 21-percent of it's content which is made from some location in Europe. Some are simply comedy shows. Some are one-hour comedy acts. Some are British-made cartoons.
The other services? They've been quiet. My guess is that they might be somewhere between 10 and 20 percent.
The draft law? Even if the EU group passes this.....it has to go back to the 28 member states and each has to agree and pass the legislation. Some may read this and say that it doesn't go far enough and that if you offer Netflix in Italy....ten-percent of the offerings should be Italian.
Is it necessary for a state to mandate entertainment? Bureaucratic folks will get all defensive at this point and say that you need to preserve the unique features of Europe. Course, this leads to weird programming ideas.
What would you do if you were Netflix and needed ten shows to meet the 20-percent level? Well, if this were me.....I'd go hire a couple of college kids to produce phony travel documentary pieces, fake reality shows, and stamp them as 'Euro-made'. If you laid out 10,000 Euro for me....I could make six hours of fake reality stuff with Germans in the background and some commentary over the food, the beer, or the exotic women of Germany.
The thing is....so much of what Netflix offers (I know, because I use it myself) is US programming. Let's face it....ninety-percent of what you see on both state-run German TV and commercially-run German TV....is lousy two-star material. If you were eighteen years old.....you'd laugh over the options for viewing. At present, I doubt if my son even watches three hours a month of whats on commercial German TV, and probably hasn't watched any German state-run stuff in six years.
So, when you hear that Netflix got some Polish comedian signed up for a fake reality series....you can guess what the intent of the deal is really about. Luckily, the EU didn't set the goal at fifty percent (instead of 20 percent).
What you typically find right now is that most Germans between the ages of 18 and 25....have signed up for at least one service. In general, they are giving up completely on public-run TV options, and barely accepting what options exist on commercial TV. It says a lot about the future of television and where things might be going in twenty years.
So, we have this thing going on with the EU. They've decided that they need to be in the middle of your TV network options via the internet. Naturally, you'd ask why, but this is the EU and they like to make sure that they seem important.
Their current game is to put together a draft law which says that twenty-percent of the content offered by Amazon or Netflix....MUST be made in Europe.
Why? This would ensure a European quality. I know....it sounds like BS.....but you need to think like the EU.
A problem? Not that much, at least for Netflix. They say presently....they are putting out 21-percent of it's content which is made from some location in Europe. Some are simply comedy shows. Some are one-hour comedy acts. Some are British-made cartoons.
The other services? They've been quiet. My guess is that they might be somewhere between 10 and 20 percent.
The draft law? Even if the EU group passes this.....it has to go back to the 28 member states and each has to agree and pass the legislation. Some may read this and say that it doesn't go far enough and that if you offer Netflix in Italy....ten-percent of the offerings should be Italian.
Is it necessary for a state to mandate entertainment? Bureaucratic folks will get all defensive at this point and say that you need to preserve the unique features of Europe. Course, this leads to weird programming ideas.
What would you do if you were Netflix and needed ten shows to meet the 20-percent level? Well, if this were me.....I'd go hire a couple of college kids to produce phony travel documentary pieces, fake reality shows, and stamp them as 'Euro-made'. If you laid out 10,000 Euro for me....I could make six hours of fake reality stuff with Germans in the background and some commentary over the food, the beer, or the exotic women of Germany.
The thing is....so much of what Netflix offers (I know, because I use it myself) is US programming. Let's face it....ninety-percent of what you see on both state-run German TV and commercially-run German TV....is lousy two-star material. If you were eighteen years old.....you'd laugh over the options for viewing. At present, I doubt if my son even watches three hours a month of whats on commercial German TV, and probably hasn't watched any German state-run stuff in six years.
So, when you hear that Netflix got some Polish comedian signed up for a fake reality series....you can guess what the intent of the deal is really about. Luckily, the EU didn't set the goal at fifty percent (instead of 20 percent).
Nothing To Really Worry About (till 2019)
It's not anything to get excited about because the election is so far off (2019), but the Focus folks have done polling in the state of Brandenburg (on the eastern side of Germany), and it's a pretty dismal place for the SPD and CDU.
Today, the public would vote:
SPD: 29-percent
CDU: 23-percent
Linke Party: 17-percent
Green Party: 6-percent
AfD Party: 20-percent
We are three years away from the next state election there and lots of thing can happen to undo the AfD Party, or diminish the CDU or SPD Parties.
The problem is.....just three points off both the SPD and CDU locally there in the state....puts the AfD Party near 26-percent, and awful close to winning a state, but creating a screwed up mess for forming a coalition partner (forget about either the SPD or CDU).
Long term, it is a worrying trend for consideration because none of the significant parties in German politics can partner with the AfD and it shows the general public in disagreement with the immigration and asylum trend.
Today, the public would vote:
SPD: 29-percent
CDU: 23-percent
Linke Party: 17-percent
Green Party: 6-percent
AfD Party: 20-percent
We are three years away from the next state election there and lots of thing can happen to undo the AfD Party, or diminish the CDU or SPD Parties.
The problem is.....just three points off both the SPD and CDU locally there in the state....puts the AfD Party near 26-percent, and awful close to winning a state, but creating a screwed up mess for forming a coalition partner (forget about either the SPD or CDU).
Long term, it is a worrying trend for consideration because none of the significant parties in German politics can partner with the AfD and it shows the general public in disagreement with the immigration and asylum trend.
Empty Suit Syndrome
This is one of my essays over a phenomenon that I've come to observe about German people and culture. It is an unsettling note.
German society comes to view the acts and behavior of the Berlin leadership (the federal level) as the all-mighty cog in the German wheel. Germany cannot exist or progress.....without their involvement and daily actions to make Germany operational and productive.
But this has led the pubic over the past year or two....mostly because of immigration and integration issues.....to question the competency and aptitude of those entrusted with leadership and authority.
If you go back and look at resumes of German leaders from the 1960s and 1970s (Willy Brandt, Helmet Schmidt, Helmet Kohl)....these were all guys who'd done time as mayors, or state governors, or had actual jobs with responsibility with actual companies.
At some point as you go into the 1990s....you then get to a point where you have more of the major players appearing in the Bundestag whose resume in life is mostly filled with political positions, lawyer work, attachments to consulting within the political world. You can look at the resumes of both Gerhard Schroder and Chancellor Merkel.....on day one of their new job as head of state, and read off what amounts to a 3x5 card resumes. If you toss in all the political achievements....maybe a half-page of accomplishments exists. But if you were looking strictly at leadership qualities, decision-making opportunities, and resourcefulness....both were marginal performers.
Over the past twenty years of German politics, it's been a chaotic period where problems were admitted and less-than-perfect programs or solutions were enacted upon. The general public would say that both centralist parties have done a less-then-perfect job and voice some negativity about what they see.
The positive side of this is that the German economy has been on positive ground for a number of years and unemployment hasn't consumed the public trust.
If you walked into a pub with a dozen Germans and brought up the topic of immigration or asylum.....most would voice some issue which bothers them, and drills down into the political establishment not being able to realize the problem until it's a page one of the newspaper. They then fumble around to come up with a solution which the public will realize later....wasn't well conceived or thought out....but the only solution that was agreeable or acceptable within political boundaries.
The future? That's the thing that makes the 'cog' to this wheel look suspect. Neither of the center parties (CDU or SPD) can really put four-star players out for prospective voters to get peppy or charged up about. If you were looking for political qualities, fine. But once you start to look around for leadership or skills of management....there's this room of empty suits.
For those Germans frustrated.....taking your vote elsewhere? For what? You might cast a vote of frustration toward the Green Party, the Linke Party, the FDP or the AfD....but they present the same issue....empty suits.
I'm not going to say it's a pure German problem, because American voters are in the same state of resentment, and their alternate solution is Trump....whether it's wise or not....it's a vote of annoyance with the system.
In the end, an empty suit just delivers some fake speech, a fraudulent appearance of a Sheppard over the flock, or some dynamic program of great cost but no apparent improvement. It is the price of democracy.
German society comes to view the acts and behavior of the Berlin leadership (the federal level) as the all-mighty cog in the German wheel. Germany cannot exist or progress.....without their involvement and daily actions to make Germany operational and productive.
But this has led the pubic over the past year or two....mostly because of immigration and integration issues.....to question the competency and aptitude of those entrusted with leadership and authority.
If you go back and look at resumes of German leaders from the 1960s and 1970s (Willy Brandt, Helmet Schmidt, Helmet Kohl)....these were all guys who'd done time as mayors, or state governors, or had actual jobs with responsibility with actual companies.
At some point as you go into the 1990s....you then get to a point where you have more of the major players appearing in the Bundestag whose resume in life is mostly filled with political positions, lawyer work, attachments to consulting within the political world. You can look at the resumes of both Gerhard Schroder and Chancellor Merkel.....on day one of their new job as head of state, and read off what amounts to a 3x5 card resumes. If you toss in all the political achievements....maybe a half-page of accomplishments exists. But if you were looking strictly at leadership qualities, decision-making opportunities, and resourcefulness....both were marginal performers.
Over the past twenty years of German politics, it's been a chaotic period where problems were admitted and less-than-perfect programs or solutions were enacted upon. The general public would say that both centralist parties have done a less-then-perfect job and voice some negativity about what they see.
The positive side of this is that the German economy has been on positive ground for a number of years and unemployment hasn't consumed the public trust.
If you walked into a pub with a dozen Germans and brought up the topic of immigration or asylum.....most would voice some issue which bothers them, and drills down into the political establishment not being able to realize the problem until it's a page one of the newspaper. They then fumble around to come up with a solution which the public will realize later....wasn't well conceived or thought out....but the only solution that was agreeable or acceptable within political boundaries.
The future? That's the thing that makes the 'cog' to this wheel look suspect. Neither of the center parties (CDU or SPD) can really put four-star players out for prospective voters to get peppy or charged up about. If you were looking for political qualities, fine. But once you start to look around for leadership or skills of management....there's this room of empty suits.
For those Germans frustrated.....taking your vote elsewhere? For what? You might cast a vote of frustration toward the Green Party, the Linke Party, the FDP or the AfD....but they present the same issue....empty suits.
I'm not going to say it's a pure German problem, because American voters are in the same state of resentment, and their alternate solution is Trump....whether it's wise or not....it's a vote of annoyance with the system.
In the end, an empty suit just delivers some fake speech, a fraudulent appearance of a Sheppard over the flock, or some dynamic program of great cost but no apparent improvement. It is the price of democracy.
Documentary on the Bahn
Last night, I watched a documentary piece (40 minutes) on "Die Bahn und Die Kunde".....the Railway and the Customers....a 2015 news documentary.
The news people went out and spent a week with actual customers of the German railway service, and noted that most have frustrations and anger over how the Bahn has developed over the past decade or two. It's not a happy crowd of customers.
First, some people who are over fifty can remember when trains ran in the 1970s faster than they run today, from point A to point B. You would think because of modern technology, better equipment, innovation, and competency....things would be better, and they simply aren't.
Second, most train stations are now unmanned, and you have no choice but to buy your ticket via the machine by the station, or buy via the internet. The news team cut to two guys on bikes, who'd finished up a day of biking and wanted to take the train back home. This meant having to buy a ticket for themselves, and a ticket for each bike. As they demonstrated....the machine just isn't that customer friendly, and they missed their first connection back home because nothing made sense. In the end, they had to call a 1-900 number (paying for the service) to get advice on how to buy the bike ticket. You might want to note.....even if you have a regular ticket....if you drag that bike with you on the train....it's supposed to have a ticket, and not all trains allow bikes (another curious thing about networks today).
Third, they spent ten minutes covering the problem for handicapped or older people in getting onboard trains. You'd think there would be one single standard for height from the step of the ramp to the height of the train step. Well....NO.
I've noticed this issue in Wiesbaden. There are around four different sizes for your step onto a train. There's one class which has a 1.5 foot step down.....to get into a train. There's another class which has the step equal to the platform. Another has a half-foot step up. And yet another which a 1.5 foot step up. Why not one standard?
Fourth, they covered hazardous situations which went on for weeks before maintenance fixed the problem.
Fifth, they went to the vision of the Bahn ahead. It's an interesting thing because what you will see in less than 20 years is mostly a railway system built along major rail corridors (say Mainz to Kaiserslautern and onto Saarbrucken) and the lesser track operations which hit twenty-odd smaller towns in the region being shutdown and covered by bus traffic instead). What the Bahn is admitting is that they can't provide the amount of rail traffic that Germany had in the 1970s (it's hay-day) at the cost that it takes to run the operation. It simply isn't that profitable.
You kinda shake your head. I can remember in the late 70's being in Germany and you had all kinds of options to get from point A to point B. None of this was computerized, and you had to have their schedule book in your hands and rely upon schedule posters in each bahnhof to keep you on track to your next destination. Rarely did trains run behind schedule.
Today? I can sit on a bus heading toward the bahnhof and ask my smart-phone about the options of getting from Wiesbaden to point A, and get the answer in 30 seconds. Then I will notice that if I miss that one train.....I'll be waiting for 90 minutes for the next connection. I'm continually in a plan 'B' thinking pattern when messing around with the Bahn of 2016. Air Conditioning failure? In the midst of July and August, I'm always worrying about this and if the inside temperature is 90 degrees or more.....I will likely not sit for more than 30 minutes on a train before I have to get off and cool off.
It'll be a sad day in 2030, when I walk into the Wiesbaden station and realize that for the entire day....there's only 25 trains to make a run....instead of the sixty they currently run now.
The news people went out and spent a week with actual customers of the German railway service, and noted that most have frustrations and anger over how the Bahn has developed over the past decade or two. It's not a happy crowd of customers.
First, some people who are over fifty can remember when trains ran in the 1970s faster than they run today, from point A to point B. You would think because of modern technology, better equipment, innovation, and competency....things would be better, and they simply aren't.
Second, most train stations are now unmanned, and you have no choice but to buy your ticket via the machine by the station, or buy via the internet. The news team cut to two guys on bikes, who'd finished up a day of biking and wanted to take the train back home. This meant having to buy a ticket for themselves, and a ticket for each bike. As they demonstrated....the machine just isn't that customer friendly, and they missed their first connection back home because nothing made sense. In the end, they had to call a 1-900 number (paying for the service) to get advice on how to buy the bike ticket. You might want to note.....even if you have a regular ticket....if you drag that bike with you on the train....it's supposed to have a ticket, and not all trains allow bikes (another curious thing about networks today).
Third, they spent ten minutes covering the problem for handicapped or older people in getting onboard trains. You'd think there would be one single standard for height from the step of the ramp to the height of the train step. Well....NO.
I've noticed this issue in Wiesbaden. There are around four different sizes for your step onto a train. There's one class which has a 1.5 foot step down.....to get into a train. There's another class which has the step equal to the platform. Another has a half-foot step up. And yet another which a 1.5 foot step up. Why not one standard?
Fourth, they covered hazardous situations which went on for weeks before maintenance fixed the problem.
Fifth, they went to the vision of the Bahn ahead. It's an interesting thing because what you will see in less than 20 years is mostly a railway system built along major rail corridors (say Mainz to Kaiserslautern and onto Saarbrucken) and the lesser track operations which hit twenty-odd smaller towns in the region being shutdown and covered by bus traffic instead). What the Bahn is admitting is that they can't provide the amount of rail traffic that Germany had in the 1970s (it's hay-day) at the cost that it takes to run the operation. It simply isn't that profitable.
You kinda shake your head. I can remember in the late 70's being in Germany and you had all kinds of options to get from point A to point B. None of this was computerized, and you had to have their schedule book in your hands and rely upon schedule posters in each bahnhof to keep you on track to your next destination. Rarely did trains run behind schedule.
Today? I can sit on a bus heading toward the bahnhof and ask my smart-phone about the options of getting from Wiesbaden to point A, and get the answer in 30 seconds. Then I will notice that if I miss that one train.....I'll be waiting for 90 minutes for the next connection. I'm continually in a plan 'B' thinking pattern when messing around with the Bahn of 2016. Air Conditioning failure? In the midst of July and August, I'm always worrying about this and if the inside temperature is 90 degrees or more.....I will likely not sit for more than 30 minutes on a train before I have to get off and cool off.
It'll be a sad day in 2030, when I walk into the Wiesbaden station and realize that for the entire day....there's only 25 trains to make a run....instead of the sixty they currently run now.
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
The Conversion Story
About every week here in Germany, there is a page five story about more immigrants or refugees which have converted from Islam to Christianity. It might be eight lines.....maybe even twenty lines with a quote or two from the attendees.
This week, I read a comment by a Islamic scholar who was concerned that Islamic parents were converting, and bringing their child along with them. The scholar insisted that a child should not be "forced" into another religion, and should stick with the original religion until age eighteen. He didn't really explain how the newly converted Christian parents would continue to bring up Islamic "Joe" the kid.
The actual numbers of conversion? Unknown, and the German government....frankly....does not want to ask this question or get into any discussion over religion. It's a personal matter.....you stay like you are, or you convert.....but you do this on your own time and decision-making process.
If you asked me to take a guess.....probably less than 200 Muslims convert a month across Germany. It's simply based a story I saw late last year and one Christian minister noted he'd converted 30-odd refugees in the past quarter (in some 'burb' of Berlin, if memory serves me). So I'm guessing on this mostly across all of Germany.
Why a conversion?
Well, there are two ways of approaching this.
First, a number of Muslims are from various countries which aren't Iraqi or Syria....and they want a better chance of a permanent visa to stay in Germany. So they think that by presenting themselves as a Christian.....they won't be sent back to the old country (of a Muslim origin). It does make sense, but it puts you into hot water if any friends or associates find out about your conversion.
Second, an awful lot of Muslims grew up in a system which they simply didn't agree with but had no plan B or other opportunity. So, when standing in Germany and noting the freedom of religion....especially in integration classes....you have a chance to ask stupid questions and feel some conviction to the 'other' religion.
A major trend? No. You have to remember that twenty-odd thousand Germans quit their religion every year and it's a country under constant spiritual change. Even Scientology operates in Germany today (they often up up info stands in shopping districts to attract potential new members).
I sat in Wiesbaden last year and observed some older Muslim gal (in her fifties) who'd stopped at a Scientology stand and was getting the five-minute orientation speech. I think she was just amazed that other religions would put up a info shop in a public place.
So, it's just a trend....nothing more. But if you were an Islamic scholar and you figured out that a couple thousand were converting over each year, and there was an upward trend.....it might bother you. Course, you wouldn't go and ask your members what their anxiety was about, or if they were demoralized about behavior within the religion, or have a Q and A with younger members who are cynical about the old country values and cultural landscape. You'd just continue on with plan-A.
It is as I've noted on numerous occasions....a very tough atmosphere for some extreme conservative to survive and flourish under their religious principals. Germans are progressive, liberal, and accepting of a lot of wild behavior.
So, when you see this stories of conversion....it's really not big numbers or anything to brag about. But if you were a religious scholar and worried about your flock decreasing.....every single conversion is a problem you can't get around.
This week, I read a comment by a Islamic scholar who was concerned that Islamic parents were converting, and bringing their child along with them. The scholar insisted that a child should not be "forced" into another religion, and should stick with the original religion until age eighteen. He didn't really explain how the newly converted Christian parents would continue to bring up Islamic "Joe" the kid.
The actual numbers of conversion? Unknown, and the German government....frankly....does not want to ask this question or get into any discussion over religion. It's a personal matter.....you stay like you are, or you convert.....but you do this on your own time and decision-making process.
If you asked me to take a guess.....probably less than 200 Muslims convert a month across Germany. It's simply based a story I saw late last year and one Christian minister noted he'd converted 30-odd refugees in the past quarter (in some 'burb' of Berlin, if memory serves me). So I'm guessing on this mostly across all of Germany.
Why a conversion?
Well, there are two ways of approaching this.
First, a number of Muslims are from various countries which aren't Iraqi or Syria....and they want a better chance of a permanent visa to stay in Germany. So they think that by presenting themselves as a Christian.....they won't be sent back to the old country (of a Muslim origin). It does make sense, but it puts you into hot water if any friends or associates find out about your conversion.
Second, an awful lot of Muslims grew up in a system which they simply didn't agree with but had no plan B or other opportunity. So, when standing in Germany and noting the freedom of religion....especially in integration classes....you have a chance to ask stupid questions and feel some conviction to the 'other' religion.
A major trend? No. You have to remember that twenty-odd thousand Germans quit their religion every year and it's a country under constant spiritual change. Even Scientology operates in Germany today (they often up up info stands in shopping districts to attract potential new members).
I sat in Wiesbaden last year and observed some older Muslim gal (in her fifties) who'd stopped at a Scientology stand and was getting the five-minute orientation speech. I think she was just amazed that other religions would put up a info shop in a public place.
So, it's just a trend....nothing more. But if you were an Islamic scholar and you figured out that a couple thousand were converting over each year, and there was an upward trend.....it might bother you. Course, you wouldn't go and ask your members what their anxiety was about, or if they were demoralized about behavior within the religion, or have a Q and A with younger members who are cynical about the old country values and cultural landscape. You'd just continue on with plan-A.
It is as I've noted on numerous occasions....a very tough atmosphere for some extreme conservative to survive and flourish under their religious principals. Germans are progressive, liberal, and accepting of a lot of wild behavior.
So, when you see this stories of conversion....it's really not big numbers or anything to brag about. But if you were a religious scholar and worried about your flock decreasing.....every single conversion is a problem you can't get around.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
"Promote and Demand"
There's been a meeting to occur with German political figures....mostly from the CDU and SPD....to wrap up the draft to a new immigrant law for Germany.
When you hear the expression "Fördern und Fordern", that refers to the law, which translates roughly into "Promote and Demand."
Within the draft, there are a couple of interesting items.
For example, the Berlin-draft says that benefits will be established. So state assistance won't be differing from state to state.
The draft law also will say that if you are a refugee in a yet-to-be approved status for permanent visa....you will be able to work in areas of Germany where unemployment is low (something that doesn't happen currently). How they define these areas of unemployment wasn't explained and I suspect that this will be pushed to the extreme.
There is a piece within the draft which says that an immigrant must learn German and make enough money to support themselves. It's not clear about the threshold to "enough money" but maybe this has something to do with immigrants asking for welfare treatment and they can use this request to send the immigrant back to his home-country.
The draft also has a line or two which suggests that the German government will be able to direct to a particular state or region, where they must stay during this entire process.
If you had some relatives in Stuttgart and wanted that as your preferred settlement area.....well, you might not be approved.
There's also the ability to use this text to settle people into rural areas, rather than urbanized areas (a current problem with housing).
Fixing the issues and getting the negativity off their door-step? Not really. Maybe if they'd done this back in the spring of 2015.....they'd be ahead of the ballgame and impress people.
The legality of forcing an immigrant to a particular area or away from his preferred choice? I'm guessing it'll be challenged in court. Perhaps it'll stand judicial review, and survive.
As for the push to rural areas? That's the only way that the housing crisis won't explode over the next five years. If you go to Frankfurt or any of the top twenty cities in Germany.....there's a major problem with affordable housing. It's a trend that's been going on for a decade. There's a very limited amount of action going on to remedy this, and the suggestion that you could allow 10,000 more immigrants to arrive in Frankfurt over the next two years....would bring some heartburn to the locals who already have problems with housing.
Jobs in the rural areas? No. It's curious how they structured this because if you get forced into the rural areas of Germany.....find no job.....you get removed eventually (at least by the word of this draft).
My sentiment is that this draft law won't really fix much, but it deflects the public frustrations for six months and gives the political leadership in Berlin to say that they've been working on fixing the issues.
And if they slip back to one million immigrants arriving yearly in Germany? That's really part of the frustration of the public....there are no limits.
When you hear the expression "Fördern und Fordern", that refers to the law, which translates roughly into "Promote and Demand."
Within the draft, there are a couple of interesting items.
For example, the Berlin-draft says that benefits will be established. So state assistance won't be differing from state to state.
The draft law also will say that if you are a refugee in a yet-to-be approved status for permanent visa....you will be able to work in areas of Germany where unemployment is low (something that doesn't happen currently). How they define these areas of unemployment wasn't explained and I suspect that this will be pushed to the extreme.
There is a piece within the draft which says that an immigrant must learn German and make enough money to support themselves. It's not clear about the threshold to "enough money" but maybe this has something to do with immigrants asking for welfare treatment and they can use this request to send the immigrant back to his home-country.
The draft also has a line or two which suggests that the German government will be able to direct to a particular state or region, where they must stay during this entire process.
If you had some relatives in Stuttgart and wanted that as your preferred settlement area.....well, you might not be approved.
There's also the ability to use this text to settle people into rural areas, rather than urbanized areas (a current problem with housing).
Fixing the issues and getting the negativity off their door-step? Not really. Maybe if they'd done this back in the spring of 2015.....they'd be ahead of the ballgame and impress people.
The legality of forcing an immigrant to a particular area or away from his preferred choice? I'm guessing it'll be challenged in court. Perhaps it'll stand judicial review, and survive.
As for the push to rural areas? That's the only way that the housing crisis won't explode over the next five years. If you go to Frankfurt or any of the top twenty cities in Germany.....there's a major problem with affordable housing. It's a trend that's been going on for a decade. There's a very limited amount of action going on to remedy this, and the suggestion that you could allow 10,000 more immigrants to arrive in Frankfurt over the next two years....would bring some heartburn to the locals who already have problems with housing.
Jobs in the rural areas? No. It's curious how they structured this because if you get forced into the rural areas of Germany.....find no job.....you get removed eventually (at least by the word of this draft).
My sentiment is that this draft law won't really fix much, but it deflects the public frustrations for six months and gives the political leadership in Berlin to say that they've been working on fixing the issues.
And if they slip back to one million immigrants arriving yearly in Germany? That's really part of the frustration of the public....there are no limits.
Monday, May 23, 2016
Europe in the Midst of a Tunnel
If someone were to open up a door and view Europe in 2010, and come back six years later to view Europe in the summer of 2016.....he'd basically say that things are fairly chaotic, in some change-dynamic, and fearful of some shift in public mood today.
It doesn't matter where you look, there's some heavy themes at work.
In the UK, there's talk of disconnecting from the EU, and the vote in a few weeks will determine that. No one can be sure of the outcome, and there's some harsh circumstances being talked about.
In Austria.....the election results from yesterday are unknown still (2,800 vote separate the far-right candidate from the Green leader at present). The two center parties? Well....the public frustration with them blanked out their normal 50-to-60 percent of the national vote in the primary run-up (between them.....they got 22-percent).
In France, terrorism is on everyone's mind....twenty-four hours a day. There could be several thousand radical Muslim guys in the country. If you look at the changes implemented over the past six months.....civil rights have been carved out and people asking tough questions of the political process.
In Germany? A majority would like for the Chancellor to quietly go, and have some change dynamic thrown into the system. Neither the CDU or the SPD can successfully spin enough gimmicks to make people happy at present.
Regionally, I can go through at least six other countries which are looking at public frustration with their current government and the theme of bureaucrats at work.
Where does this all lead?
I think there are three essential issues that people looking upon and can't get a clear vision of the future.
First, news organizations are being questioned more than ever over their "news", their possible manipulation, their truthfulness, and their way of telling a story. It doesn't matter if you are in Poland, France, Germany or the UK.....journalists are putting themselves into a unflattering light. Maybe it's just an accident, or maybe it's simply the fact that the public has gotten smarter and wiser over issues.
Second, there are a fair number of people throughout Europe who see themselves and their nation as some 'savior' for the tired, the poor, the migrant refugee, etc. "We can save them all" is a theme that you see in various circles, and there's no limit to the nature of their goodwill. The general problem is that there are vast numbers of people in the world who are disenchanted and if just twenty million made the decision to head off to Europe.....they might be welcomed by one segment of European society, and find a second segment in total disagreement over helping those twenty-odd million enter and assimilate into the affected area. Neither group sees a middle-ground.
Third and final....you get this odd feeling that most countries in the EU have been on auto-pilot and just cruising along for the past decade or two. You look at leadership and what you see are characters with a five-line resume who did well enough to get votes, but can't deliver real leadership in chaotic times. If you have a slate of five different candidates in front of you....it's really just a contest of five folks with weak and marginal resumes.....and you are picking the best of the lesser choices to lead a nation......the repeating this process across each nation in the EU.
All of this leading off to some war-dynamic? No. This isn't 1914 or 1932.
Economically, most European countries are in a positive economic situation currently (NOT Greece, but then Greece isn't exactly built to be a positive economic power). Most countries have a decent employment number, and showing some vision on keeping their public happy even if it a fraud.
To be honest, all of the European countries have built themselves down to such an extent, that they can't threaten anyone....even a neighboring country.
One of the odder things is that if you look across the landscape of Europe today....various internal differences exist to such a degree....that break-up's of countries is more likely....than war conflicts of one nation against another. A number of cultures would like to manage their own destiny or lay out their path to the future instead of formed up as one single nation.
I will put this label upon the whole scene. Imagine if you will....Lewis and Clark on the far eastern side of the unknown in 1804, and having only a vague idea of where they will be in a year or two....yet not hesitating or worrying about some fear of the future. That is where we are today in Europe.....on the verge of the unknown, and I think most would say they might like to stay around a while.....to see where things end up.
It doesn't matter where you look, there's some heavy themes at work.
In the UK, there's talk of disconnecting from the EU, and the vote in a few weeks will determine that. No one can be sure of the outcome, and there's some harsh circumstances being talked about.
In Austria.....the election results from yesterday are unknown still (2,800 vote separate the far-right candidate from the Green leader at present). The two center parties? Well....the public frustration with them blanked out their normal 50-to-60 percent of the national vote in the primary run-up (between them.....they got 22-percent).
In France, terrorism is on everyone's mind....twenty-four hours a day. There could be several thousand radical Muslim guys in the country. If you look at the changes implemented over the past six months.....civil rights have been carved out and people asking tough questions of the political process.
In Germany? A majority would like for the Chancellor to quietly go, and have some change dynamic thrown into the system. Neither the CDU or the SPD can successfully spin enough gimmicks to make people happy at present.
Regionally, I can go through at least six other countries which are looking at public frustration with their current government and the theme of bureaucrats at work.
Where does this all lead?
I think there are three essential issues that people looking upon and can't get a clear vision of the future.
First, news organizations are being questioned more than ever over their "news", their possible manipulation, their truthfulness, and their way of telling a story. It doesn't matter if you are in Poland, France, Germany or the UK.....journalists are putting themselves into a unflattering light. Maybe it's just an accident, or maybe it's simply the fact that the public has gotten smarter and wiser over issues.
Second, there are a fair number of people throughout Europe who see themselves and their nation as some 'savior' for the tired, the poor, the migrant refugee, etc. "We can save them all" is a theme that you see in various circles, and there's no limit to the nature of their goodwill. The general problem is that there are vast numbers of people in the world who are disenchanted and if just twenty million made the decision to head off to Europe.....they might be welcomed by one segment of European society, and find a second segment in total disagreement over helping those twenty-odd million enter and assimilate into the affected area. Neither group sees a middle-ground.
Third and final....you get this odd feeling that most countries in the EU have been on auto-pilot and just cruising along for the past decade or two. You look at leadership and what you see are characters with a five-line resume who did well enough to get votes, but can't deliver real leadership in chaotic times. If you have a slate of five different candidates in front of you....it's really just a contest of five folks with weak and marginal resumes.....and you are picking the best of the lesser choices to lead a nation......the repeating this process across each nation in the EU.
All of this leading off to some war-dynamic? No. This isn't 1914 or 1932.
Economically, most European countries are in a positive economic situation currently (NOT Greece, but then Greece isn't exactly built to be a positive economic power). Most countries have a decent employment number, and showing some vision on keeping their public happy even if it a fraud.
To be honest, all of the European countries have built themselves down to such an extent, that they can't threaten anyone....even a neighboring country.
One of the odder things is that if you look across the landscape of Europe today....various internal differences exist to such a degree....that break-up's of countries is more likely....than war conflicts of one nation against another. A number of cultures would like to manage their own destiny or lay out their path to the future instead of formed up as one single nation.
I will put this label upon the whole scene. Imagine if you will....Lewis and Clark on the far eastern side of the unknown in 1804, and having only a vague idea of where they will be in a year or two....yet not hesitating or worrying about some fear of the future. That is where we are today in Europe.....on the verge of the unknown, and I think most would say they might like to stay around a while.....to see where things end up.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
The French Solution
If you follow French news over the past two weeks....there's been this curious program that was approved by the government.
If you go Sarafisten (radical Islam) and leave France....you were typically on a 'bad-boy' list and it'd be a difficult path for you to ever return to France. So a lot of folks who went off....just walked out a side door and the authorities didn't know anything about them leaving, or later....about them returning.
So, this mechanism was created....a deradicalization center. Rather than discover you and send you off to prison or force you to leave the country.....you'd be directed by a judge to go for a number of weeks to a deradicalization center and let someone test your honest nature and willing behavior to stay 'French'.
Most people would look at this and question how stupid the idea might be.
The thing is.....if you were back from the Syrian front, and all charged up on ISIS-thinking, just how long could you fake people out....in a fairly open and sanitized environment? Hour after hour, in some open classroom with a French mentor and maybe three or four other returnees? Maybe one of the fellow returnees in the room....isn't a returnee but a French intelligence officer?
Cameras? Monitoring around the clock?
A dedicated Sarafisten guy might be able to last two weeks just pretending he's all recovered and cleaned up from his ISIS tour in Syria.....but I seriously doubt that he can make it a full month in some program where your behavior is monitored around the clock.
What happens after you such a program? Unknown. There's a very limited script written by French journalists over this and it's a program invented out of thin air.
The thing is....once you create these deradicalization centers and mandate people attend, might there be a second step?
Maybe guys who've never left France for the ISIS-zone.....being told to report for a few weeks of behavior observation and a determination if they've been radicalized while there in France? That's the thing about this creation.....you could go anywhere with behavior observation and have a thousand folks a month being put through some type of government program.
You could even require Islamic religious scholars to attend for a month....throwing five such guys into a group and by day ten.....the jihadist scholar wakes up to realize that he's the only legit scholar and the other four were simply intelligence 'actors'....noting that he's radicalized and needs some intensive transition behavior activity.
If you go Sarafisten (radical Islam) and leave France....you were typically on a 'bad-boy' list and it'd be a difficult path for you to ever return to France. So a lot of folks who went off....just walked out a side door and the authorities didn't know anything about them leaving, or later....about them returning.
So, this mechanism was created....a deradicalization center. Rather than discover you and send you off to prison or force you to leave the country.....you'd be directed by a judge to go for a number of weeks to a deradicalization center and let someone test your honest nature and willing behavior to stay 'French'.
Most people would look at this and question how stupid the idea might be.
The thing is.....if you were back from the Syrian front, and all charged up on ISIS-thinking, just how long could you fake people out....in a fairly open and sanitized environment? Hour after hour, in some open classroom with a French mentor and maybe three or four other returnees? Maybe one of the fellow returnees in the room....isn't a returnee but a French intelligence officer?
Cameras? Monitoring around the clock?
A dedicated Sarafisten guy might be able to last two weeks just pretending he's all recovered and cleaned up from his ISIS tour in Syria.....but I seriously doubt that he can make it a full month in some program where your behavior is monitored around the clock.
What happens after you such a program? Unknown. There's a very limited script written by French journalists over this and it's a program invented out of thin air.
The thing is....once you create these deradicalization centers and mandate people attend, might there be a second step?
Maybe guys who've never left France for the ISIS-zone.....being told to report for a few weeks of behavior observation and a determination if they've been radicalized while there in France? That's the thing about this creation.....you could go anywhere with behavior observation and have a thousand folks a month being put through some type of government program.
You could even require Islamic religious scholars to attend for a month....throwing five such guys into a group and by day ten.....the jihadist scholar wakes up to realize that he's the only legit scholar and the other four were simply intelligence 'actors'....noting that he's radicalized and needs some intensive transition behavior activity.
A Dogs and Cats Story
There's a page five-type story from the Saarland this weekend.....which kinda makes you laugh.
For several years, because of violent attacks, there's been this German effort to register and monitor dogs of certain breeds. Germans will say that the handful of attacks.....makes it a necessity to monitor the dog and his owner to some degree. The public has gone along with this.....mostly because 98-percent own dogs of a non-vicious nature.
Well....the SPD Party in the Saarland wants to turn the current database into a national database of ALL dogs....not just the vicious breeds. This would all lead to compulsory labeling of dogs, and each would have an evaluation.
I think in some way.....this has to deal with the fact that all dogs could have some minor behavior problem, and some trained guy could spot the issue and ID the dog as a potential problem.
For those who weren't aware....there are legal categories now for problem dogs in Germany.
Class One Dogs: These are presumed by law to ALWAYS be dangerous. In Bavaria, they cannot be imported. This group? AMERICAN STAFFORDSHIRE TERRIER BANDOG PIT-BULL TERRIER STAFFORDSHIRE BULL TERRIER TOSA-INU.
Class Two Dogs: These are presemed to be danagerous unless you performa temperament test (which you, the owner, pay out of your own pocket). These dogs include:ALANO AMERICAN BULLDOG BULLMASTIFF BULL TERRIOR CANE CORSO (ITALIAN MASTIFF/ITALIAN CORSO DOG) DOGO ARGENTINO DOGUE de BORDEUX FILA BRASILEIRO MASTIFF MASTINO NAPOLETANO MASTIN ESPANOL DOGO CANARIO (PERRO de PRESA CANARIO) ROTTWEILER PERRO de PRESA MALLORQUIN (CA de BOU).
(I got the list from a 2010 US Army listing).
The comical side of this entire story is that the SPD Party apparently has decided that they would also like to include into this national database of all dogs.....all cats as well.
No one is saying that any cat is presumed to always be dangerous or potentially dangerous. The hint is only that if you register dogs, it only makes sense to register cats.
Somehow, you get this gut feeling that it'll go typisch-German, and involve birds, snakes, mice, fish, horses, and rabbits.
Something that a political party, especially one that was a common worker's political party should be actively pursuing? This is why so many people get disenchanted with the current trend of the SPD Party and walk out the door.
So, if you own a dog of any type.....it's a fair chance that within two years.....even if your dog is a ultra-friendly dog.....he or she will end up on some stupid German registration database (if this suggestion is picked up by the coalition in Berlin). And if your stupid dog one day decides to hightail it and run away....you will probably have to go down to some central office in your local German county.....to report "Huns" has run away....to let the German 'bean-counter' note that there is one less dog in the local area.
If you own a cat, maybe they will avoid this whole mess....if the Berlin leadership decides it's wasted value.
Now, if they could only register and keep an accurate count of refugees in Germany.....man, that would be an interesting thing.
For several years, because of violent attacks, there's been this German effort to register and monitor dogs of certain breeds. Germans will say that the handful of attacks.....makes it a necessity to monitor the dog and his owner to some degree. The public has gone along with this.....mostly because 98-percent own dogs of a non-vicious nature.
Well....the SPD Party in the Saarland wants to turn the current database into a national database of ALL dogs....not just the vicious breeds. This would all lead to compulsory labeling of dogs, and each would have an evaluation.
I think in some way.....this has to deal with the fact that all dogs could have some minor behavior problem, and some trained guy could spot the issue and ID the dog as a potential problem.
For those who weren't aware....there are legal categories now for problem dogs in Germany.
Class One Dogs: These are presumed by law to ALWAYS be dangerous. In Bavaria, they cannot be imported. This group? AMERICAN STAFFORDSHIRE TERRIER BANDOG PIT-BULL TERRIER STAFFORDSHIRE BULL TERRIER TOSA-INU.
Class Two Dogs: These are presemed to be danagerous unless you performa temperament test (which you, the owner, pay out of your own pocket). These dogs include:ALANO AMERICAN BULLDOG BULLMASTIFF BULL TERRIOR CANE CORSO (ITALIAN MASTIFF/ITALIAN CORSO DOG) DOGO ARGENTINO DOGUE de BORDEUX FILA BRASILEIRO MASTIFF MASTINO NAPOLETANO MASTIN ESPANOL DOGO CANARIO (PERRO de PRESA CANARIO) ROTTWEILER PERRO de PRESA MALLORQUIN (CA de BOU).
(I got the list from a 2010 US Army listing).
The comical side of this entire story is that the SPD Party apparently has decided that they would also like to include into this national database of all dogs.....all cats as well.
No one is saying that any cat is presumed to always be dangerous or potentially dangerous. The hint is only that if you register dogs, it only makes sense to register cats.
Somehow, you get this gut feeling that it'll go typisch-German, and involve birds, snakes, mice, fish, horses, and rabbits.
Something that a political party, especially one that was a common worker's political party should be actively pursuing? This is why so many people get disenchanted with the current trend of the SPD Party and walk out the door.
So, if you own a dog of any type.....it's a fair chance that within two years.....even if your dog is a ultra-friendly dog.....he or she will end up on some stupid German registration database (if this suggestion is picked up by the coalition in Berlin). And if your stupid dog one day decides to hightail it and run away....you will probably have to go down to some central office in your local German county.....to report "Huns" has run away....to let the German 'bean-counter' note that there is one less dog in the local area.
If you own a cat, maybe they will avoid this whole mess....if the Berlin leadership decides it's wasted value.
Now, if they could only register and keep an accurate count of refugees in Germany.....man, that would be an interesting thing.
The Problem with Promissory Notes
This week, I noted that Saudi Arabia is discussing the use of promissory notes....to pay various companies conducting work within the country, for their actions.....instead of cash or normal currency. The chief reason is the oil pricing and continued use by Saudi Arabia to spend it's reserve capital (which lessens every month).
Promissory notes are tricky things. Once you engage in them.....you add risk to a fragile economy.
In 1932....still in the Weimar Republic period.....Germany had reached a stage with the worldwide depression where they had to take significant action.
So, Öffa bills were created.....a basic German promissory note. What was discussed in the beginning stages with this vehicle was that it was a fund-creation effort for infrastructure projects (roads, bridges, buildings, etc), and by pushing toward these agenda items......you'd have a shovel-ready (I hate using the term but even in 1932....people were that stupid) project that would invent jobs out of thin air.
The Reichsbank at the time (the state bank) went along with the idea. The note would support the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur offentliche Arbeiten AG (basically a state-run works organization). To be honest.....if you examine it in detail...it's just a fake company.
Debate starts at this point over success. The note did generate interest....thus creating projects that hired people....and those people were paid a salary which they took home.
The one positive of this note was that it's life span was written down for three months. The reality is that it could have gone on for several years. In a way, it was simply a jump-start creation....that faked the economic community, the infrastructure folks, and the general public. They all saw something being built and money moving around, with people being hired for work. Stimulation was existing, even if it was fake.
So, it's at this point that one ought to bring up inflation.....because promissory notes always create inflation. The more notes created.....the more inflation. Some inflation is OK. Massive inflation is not.
The economic minds controlling the Offa bills had a design in mind upon creating them.....there would be a very limited supply.
There would be a phase one for the short duration Offa bills, which did more or less what it was designed to do.
Then they would move to a phase two, trying to repeat the success and continue this jump-start episode.
Then we move to the end of 1932.....where the Nationalists Socialists (Nazi) Party wins the election. Throughout 1933, there's talk of big plans and changes coming. The Nazis want to rebuild their military and that costs money.
So the promissory note business is examined. Because of the success of the Offa bills....the idea is to take this onto the next level.....making a promissory bill for military growth. There's almost nothing written about the German national bank and it's opinion of such a note. You'd look at the economic side of this.....a fake currency to generate public confidence....build infrastructure....and create jobs....would be a positive.
In this Nazi idea.....you are simply creating military hardware...creating jobs....and it doesn't lead onto any big advancements for the German economy.
This new era will involve the Mefo bills. They were also created around a fake company (just like the Offa bills). The company? Metallurgische Forschungsgesellschaft (Metallurgical Research Corporation).
One must note at this point, because it was approved by the government, that this was a legitimate fraud vehicle....unlike the illegitimate fraud vehicle that Bernie Madoff created in the early 1960s. One might laugh but it helps to have the government backing a fraud.
Why funnel this through the fake company? Well, there's this problem in dealing with the Treaty of Versailles which dictates what Germany can do to rebuild its military. It had strict language about what the government could fund or build. It had no language over a private company building ships, tanks or weapons.
The Offa bills had a limited life and were supposed to be a stop-gap measure....with some success.
The Mefo bills went on, and on, and on. By 1939....the general estimate was that at least ten billion Reischmarks existed within this promissory note business.
One could say that goods and services were being generated throughout the 1930s (after the November 1932) election, and the public felt growth was going on, with jobs in abundance. The general problem is that the Mefo bills fed an ever growing problem for the end point....with inflation and some massive recession yet to come.
The Hitler government never had to deal with political fallout over a massive recession....thankfully because of the war.
Looking over the Saudi idea of a promissory note? They are dependent on oil prices eventually recovering. As each day goes by and they spend more of their reserves, there's a question of a massive recession in the works and political fallout, IF the curve back to higher oil prices doesn't occur. If their short-term usage of a promissory note works....then fine. If this turns into a long-term trend....like the Mefo bill...there's trouble ahead.
Promissory notes are tricky things. Once you engage in them.....you add risk to a fragile economy.
In 1932....still in the Weimar Republic period.....Germany had reached a stage with the worldwide depression where they had to take significant action.
So, Öffa bills were created.....a basic German promissory note. What was discussed in the beginning stages with this vehicle was that it was a fund-creation effort for infrastructure projects (roads, bridges, buildings, etc), and by pushing toward these agenda items......you'd have a shovel-ready (I hate using the term but even in 1932....people were that stupid) project that would invent jobs out of thin air.
The Reichsbank at the time (the state bank) went along with the idea. The note would support the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur offentliche Arbeiten AG (basically a state-run works organization). To be honest.....if you examine it in detail...it's just a fake company.
Debate starts at this point over success. The note did generate interest....thus creating projects that hired people....and those people were paid a salary which they took home.
The one positive of this note was that it's life span was written down for three months. The reality is that it could have gone on for several years. In a way, it was simply a jump-start creation....that faked the economic community, the infrastructure folks, and the general public. They all saw something being built and money moving around, with people being hired for work. Stimulation was existing, even if it was fake.
So, it's at this point that one ought to bring up inflation.....because promissory notes always create inflation. The more notes created.....the more inflation. Some inflation is OK. Massive inflation is not.
The economic minds controlling the Offa bills had a design in mind upon creating them.....there would be a very limited supply.
There would be a phase one for the short duration Offa bills, which did more or less what it was designed to do.
Then they would move to a phase two, trying to repeat the success and continue this jump-start episode.
Then we move to the end of 1932.....where the Nationalists Socialists (Nazi) Party wins the election. Throughout 1933, there's talk of big plans and changes coming. The Nazis want to rebuild their military and that costs money.
So the promissory note business is examined. Because of the success of the Offa bills....the idea is to take this onto the next level.....making a promissory bill for military growth. There's almost nothing written about the German national bank and it's opinion of such a note. You'd look at the economic side of this.....a fake currency to generate public confidence....build infrastructure....and create jobs....would be a positive.
In this Nazi idea.....you are simply creating military hardware...creating jobs....and it doesn't lead onto any big advancements for the German economy.
This new era will involve the Mefo bills. They were also created around a fake company (just like the Offa bills). The company? Metallurgische Forschungsgesellschaft (Metallurgical Research Corporation).
One must note at this point, because it was approved by the government, that this was a legitimate fraud vehicle....unlike the illegitimate fraud vehicle that Bernie Madoff created in the early 1960s. One might laugh but it helps to have the government backing a fraud.
Why funnel this through the fake company? Well, there's this problem in dealing with the Treaty of Versailles which dictates what Germany can do to rebuild its military. It had strict language about what the government could fund or build. It had no language over a private company building ships, tanks or weapons.
The Offa bills had a limited life and were supposed to be a stop-gap measure....with some success.
The Mefo bills went on, and on, and on. By 1939....the general estimate was that at least ten billion Reischmarks existed within this promissory note business.
One could say that goods and services were being generated throughout the 1930s (after the November 1932) election, and the public felt growth was going on, with jobs in abundance. The general problem is that the Mefo bills fed an ever growing problem for the end point....with inflation and some massive recession yet to come.
The Hitler government never had to deal with political fallout over a massive recession....thankfully because of the war.
Looking over the Saudi idea of a promissory note? They are dependent on oil prices eventually recovering. As each day goes by and they spend more of their reserves, there's a question of a massive recession in the works and political fallout, IF the curve back to higher oil prices doesn't occur. If their short-term usage of a promissory note works....then fine. If this turns into a long-term trend....like the Mefo bill...there's trouble ahead.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
The Legacy of Being a German
I will occasionally comment on the change in German landscape, after WW II.
In 1939, if you'd done a decent census.....you'd find roughly 69.3 million residents in Germany. By 1945, you'd find it being around 63 million. The statistical folks would tell you that around eight to nine percent of the population just went away, and didn't exist anymore.
On the military side, the numbers go from 3.7 million to 4.4 million German soldiers who died. The numbers can't be brought to a final conclusion because of the Russian habit of holding people for years and various Germans being declared dead but then showing up a year or two later (being released by the Russians).
Somewhere in the range of 400,000 German civilians died, from bombing runs and fires that occurred. Again, it can never be brought to a precise number because whole neighborhoods simply disappeared in some cases.
Germans killed by the Nazis? This gets brought up and the general number assigned is a minimum of 300,000.
Layered over the top of WW I?
The general figure of 2 million German soldiers dead is often given. On top of that, with civilians from disease or malnutrition? 400,000 to 700,000 civilians. In this case, it adds up to roughly four percent of the population.
In the case of the two wars.....there's a large segment of men who don't come back and it has an endearing affect on German society....even today.
Germans went through a regrowth period in the 1950s and 1960s....with the population returning to some norm, and hitting some peak of around eighty-two million back around around a decade ago. Because of a lessening birth-rate....the nation is shifting back to the 65 to 69 million number....within twenty-five years. This number is often quoted by university research projects, the German government itself, and private foundations. Other than immigrants changing this landscape, there's not much that change where they are heading.
The worst period of German history from 1914 to 1945? Well.....no.
If you go back to the Thirty Years War (starting in 1619), most historians throw differing numbers around in the region....where the plague and the war, along with malnutrition and starvation.....probably killed off around fifty-percent of the Germanic population.
Whatever exists today in Germany.....is built upon the legacy of a lot of Germans having endeared a tough circumstance to be standing here today.
In 1939, if you'd done a decent census.....you'd find roughly 69.3 million residents in Germany. By 1945, you'd find it being around 63 million. The statistical folks would tell you that around eight to nine percent of the population just went away, and didn't exist anymore.
On the military side, the numbers go from 3.7 million to 4.4 million German soldiers who died. The numbers can't be brought to a final conclusion because of the Russian habit of holding people for years and various Germans being declared dead but then showing up a year or two later (being released by the Russians).
Somewhere in the range of 400,000 German civilians died, from bombing runs and fires that occurred. Again, it can never be brought to a precise number because whole neighborhoods simply disappeared in some cases.
Germans killed by the Nazis? This gets brought up and the general number assigned is a minimum of 300,000.
Layered over the top of WW I?
The general figure of 2 million German soldiers dead is often given. On top of that, with civilians from disease or malnutrition? 400,000 to 700,000 civilians. In this case, it adds up to roughly four percent of the population.
In the case of the two wars.....there's a large segment of men who don't come back and it has an endearing affect on German society....even today.
Germans went through a regrowth period in the 1950s and 1960s....with the population returning to some norm, and hitting some peak of around eighty-two million back around around a decade ago. Because of a lessening birth-rate....the nation is shifting back to the 65 to 69 million number....within twenty-five years. This number is often quoted by university research projects, the German government itself, and private foundations. Other than immigrants changing this landscape, there's not much that change where they are heading.
The worst period of German history from 1914 to 1945? Well.....no.
If you go back to the Thirty Years War (starting in 1619), most historians throw differing numbers around in the region....where the plague and the war, along with malnutrition and starvation.....probably killed off around fifty-percent of the Germanic population.
Whatever exists today in Germany.....is built upon the legacy of a lot of Germans having endeared a tough circumstance to be standing here today.
Nazi Nuke Story
If you drive northwest out of Frankfurt, for 2.5 hours, you end up near the Jonastal Valley area of Thuringia (what was in old DDR).
This week, the region got into the news (in Germany, it's page three news....in the US, page two).
A guy who is described as a hobby historian and engineer.....seventy years old.....has stood up and claimed via ground-imaging of a particular area in the valley....he has finally discovered the Nazi nukes.
If you read through the story.....what he's done is take regular 3-D imaging capability which you can lay your hands on now and use for hobby searches, and has found five objects of significant size and shape. Two.....he claims.....without having really dug them up yet....are nukes.
Because this is all on public (state-owned) property.....the local authorities have gotten a bit peeved over the story, and basically told the old guy (in his 70s) to stop this search. He's taken his story to the newspapers, in hope that the public will insist that the government dig and recover the nukes.
The odds of the nukes existing?
This comes up about every year or two. What can be said as fact.....is that Germany went into the nuke weapon research business without any dynamic push or effort. Instead of a "Manhatten-project", they put up a "Tupelo (Miss) project" (my words to describe the effort).
The Uranprojeckt was started in the spring of 1939. Oddly, just prior to the September invasion in 1939....someone made the decision to draft up a number of men into the German Army.....of which a number of the men associated with the Uranprojeckt were drafted.
On the level of stupidity....this is one of those "10" episodes.
A few weeks after the invasion, the Germans restarted the effort. From the fall of 1939 to the January of 1942.....the Uranprojeckt made moderate progress. After January 1942? This becomes a series of debates. What's generally said by historians who research the whole episode is that the leadership of Berlin began to prioritize other weapon systems and projects.....then took various core personnel from the Uranprojeckt to work on other non-Uranprojeckt assignments. Whatever progress existed before January 1942.....slowed down to half-speed.
Adding to this whole problem is the fact that from 1932 on.....the climate to drive out Jewish academics succeed and the root of German scientists and engineers wasn't a thriving organization like it was in the 1920s.
There are some rumors (scant evidence) that at least one nuke test took place in a cave complex in the fall of 1944. At present, the evidence isn't sufficient enough for anyone to stake their reputation on it, and it remains a question mark.
So, no one really believes these stories like this.....when someone stands up and says their 3-D imaging has identified some nuke.
For the 'what-if' theorists.....if the Nazis hadn't drafted off some core members of the Uranprojeckt for Poland's episode.....if they'd delayed the France invasion by a year.....if they'd gotten the Japanese to go by the scripted invasion to the Soviet Union.....if the US delayed entering the war by two years....if the Jews weren't on some 'bad-boy' list....and if the Me-264 long-distance bomber would have been built, then yes, New York City and Washington DC probably would have had a nuke or two each by 1946. But things simply didn't occur that way.
So, you can rest tonight and feel ok.....there's probably not any Nazi nukes in existence, and you can go back to worrying about the other five-hundred things that might exist (Bigfoot, Loch Nessie, aliens, ISIS crossing the Texas border, etc).
This week, the region got into the news (in Germany, it's page three news....in the US, page two).
A guy who is described as a hobby historian and engineer.....seventy years old.....has stood up and claimed via ground-imaging of a particular area in the valley....he has finally discovered the Nazi nukes.
If you read through the story.....what he's done is take regular 3-D imaging capability which you can lay your hands on now and use for hobby searches, and has found five objects of significant size and shape. Two.....he claims.....without having really dug them up yet....are nukes.
Because this is all on public (state-owned) property.....the local authorities have gotten a bit peeved over the story, and basically told the old guy (in his 70s) to stop this search. He's taken his story to the newspapers, in hope that the public will insist that the government dig and recover the nukes.
The odds of the nukes existing?
This comes up about every year or two. What can be said as fact.....is that Germany went into the nuke weapon research business without any dynamic push or effort. Instead of a "Manhatten-project", they put up a "Tupelo (Miss) project" (my words to describe the effort).
The Uranprojeckt was started in the spring of 1939. Oddly, just prior to the September invasion in 1939....someone made the decision to draft up a number of men into the German Army.....of which a number of the men associated with the Uranprojeckt were drafted.
On the level of stupidity....this is one of those "10" episodes.
A few weeks after the invasion, the Germans restarted the effort. From the fall of 1939 to the January of 1942.....the Uranprojeckt made moderate progress. After January 1942? This becomes a series of debates. What's generally said by historians who research the whole episode is that the leadership of Berlin began to prioritize other weapon systems and projects.....then took various core personnel from the Uranprojeckt to work on other non-Uranprojeckt assignments. Whatever progress existed before January 1942.....slowed down to half-speed.
Adding to this whole problem is the fact that from 1932 on.....the climate to drive out Jewish academics succeed and the root of German scientists and engineers wasn't a thriving organization like it was in the 1920s.
There are some rumors (scant evidence) that at least one nuke test took place in a cave complex in the fall of 1944. At present, the evidence isn't sufficient enough for anyone to stake their reputation on it, and it remains a question mark.
So, no one really believes these stories like this.....when someone stands up and says their 3-D imaging has identified some nuke.
For the 'what-if' theorists.....if the Nazis hadn't drafted off some core members of the Uranprojeckt for Poland's episode.....if they'd delayed the France invasion by a year.....if they'd gotten the Japanese to go by the scripted invasion to the Soviet Union.....if the US delayed entering the war by two years....if the Jews weren't on some 'bad-boy' list....and if the Me-264 long-distance bomber would have been built, then yes, New York City and Washington DC probably would have had a nuke or two each by 1946. But things simply didn't occur that way.
So, you can rest tonight and feel ok.....there's probably not any Nazi nukes in existence, and you can go back to worrying about the other five-hundred things that might exist (Bigfoot, Loch Nessie, aliens, ISIS crossing the Texas border, etc).
Friday, May 20, 2016
The Gift that You don't Desire
I worked once with a guy who had a project that concerned an "index". The task for the guy was to take raw information, with some degree of prioritization, and funnel into a format which would deliver statistical data and form some logical sense of reason. After this guy had spent weeks on this project and went to his boss.....the boss wasn't happy with the "index" because it didn't confirm his expectations, and thus dropped what amounted to roughly 200 man-hours of work by my associate. The "index"? It ceased to exist.
That's the thing about indexes.....as long as they agree with your desires or expectations....they live on. If they don't agree.....they tend to die off.
Today, I noticed under Deutsche Welle....a new index.
It's called the Refugees Welcome Index.
Now, it might draw your attention for a minute. What's the purpose? Well.....the index asks refugees about how welcome they feel.
So, for example.....on the far end of positive countries....the category is "welcome enough to bring you into their home". Germany is actually listed as the second most favored country welcoming refugees (after China in fact).
There's six other countries, which get listed mostly near "welcomed into the city or village", and these countries are UK, Canada, Spain, Greece, US, and France.
Then you have countries which welcome you into the country but necessarily into the city or into the house.....this is Mexico, Turkey and Nigeria.
Then at the bottom.....where there's just not ANY welcome at all.....you tend to have Russia, Indonesia and Thailand.
By the features of this poll.....they even asked Germans....if they'd accept refugees into their country, and the poll said 96-percent of Germans would accept such guests.
Amnesty International then noted all this means that the vast public readily accepts refugees and we need to move onto real action....real solutions.
The problem with this kind of survey, poll and index creation....is that you really avoid asking indepth questions.
For example.....if you said that one million refugees would be desiring to enter your country over the next twelve months.....then most people would hold up a hand and ask....for how long? Or they'd ask if this is temporary only (meaning no integration classes, no job training, etc)? Or they'd ask where you intend to put the one million. Or they'd ask if this all led onto citizenship requirements. Or they'd ask how much the shelter, food, and care would cost....yearly.
You see....Amnesty International didn't want to go and spoil or screw-up this nifty barometric index. They needed numbers to go in, and come out.....to reach their desired conclusion.
Back in the spring of 2014, I have no doubt that ninety-percent of Germans were kinda open toward helping refugees. By mid-summer, and the high numbers adding up.....with cost being discussed weekly by German states....things changed. By mid-2015, I'd say at best....maybe eighty-percent of Germans were friendly on this business. By mid-January.....it's somewhere between forty and fifty-percent of German adults who lean toward a friendly nature.
Some Germans will tell you that as long as there is no cost to this....fine. Some will say that as long as it doesn't lead to immigration or integration issues....fine. Some will even say that certain religious groups are more accepting than other groups (without saying which one bothers them to some degree).
If you ask 99-percent of McDonalds visitors (regular guests) about their feeling for McDonalds....it's probably 95-percent pro-McDonalds. If you ask people who rarely go.....it's probably a 5-percent pro-McDonalds feeling. That's the problem with statistical data collected and how it gets used.
If you listed the top thirty platform items of the 1932 Nationalists Socialists Party (Nazi Party)....without saying Nazi.....most Germans (my humble bet of seventy-five percent) would say they readily approve of the platforms of such a political party. Once you mention it's all Nazi platform positions.....well.....they get all jerky and upset.
So, when you sit down at the pub in the next week, with a German or two.....bring up the index, and let the Germans know (with a big hug) that you really think it's nice of them to be regarded as such a welcoming society for refugees (made number two in the world). Maybe you'd even buy them a beer for so nice.
After a minute or two, while this German probably simmers with some frustrating words and comments....they'd respond that they try to be nice, but this always ends up with the Germans looking like idiots or spending untold amounts of money that simply doesn't exist. Then you, as the American, would pat them on the back and state that it's fine that Germany beats America once again.....really fine in fact. Then you respond that you kinda hope that refugees get this index information to help them decide on the best country to move into.
The German gets a bit worried then......asking if the index would ONLY MAKE more refugees seek to move to Germany. You'd say.....ABSOLUTELY. Then they'd grumble even more.
Whether intentional or by accident......Amnesty International has done Germany an enormous negative 'gift'. People evaluating where to go as a refugee.....will pick Germany over all other competitors.
That's the thing about indexes.....as long as they agree with your desires or expectations....they live on. If they don't agree.....they tend to die off.
Today, I noticed under Deutsche Welle....a new index.
It's called the Refugees Welcome Index.
Now, it might draw your attention for a minute. What's the purpose? Well.....the index asks refugees about how welcome they feel.
So, for example.....on the far end of positive countries....the category is "welcome enough to bring you into their home". Germany is actually listed as the second most favored country welcoming refugees (after China in fact).
There's six other countries, which get listed mostly near "welcomed into the city or village", and these countries are UK, Canada, Spain, Greece, US, and France.
Then you have countries which welcome you into the country but necessarily into the city or into the house.....this is Mexico, Turkey and Nigeria.
Then at the bottom.....where there's just not ANY welcome at all.....you tend to have Russia, Indonesia and Thailand.
By the features of this poll.....they even asked Germans....if they'd accept refugees into their country, and the poll said 96-percent of Germans would accept such guests.
Amnesty International then noted all this means that the vast public readily accepts refugees and we need to move onto real action....real solutions.
The problem with this kind of survey, poll and index creation....is that you really avoid asking indepth questions.
For example.....if you said that one million refugees would be desiring to enter your country over the next twelve months.....then most people would hold up a hand and ask....for how long? Or they'd ask if this is temporary only (meaning no integration classes, no job training, etc)? Or they'd ask where you intend to put the one million. Or they'd ask if this all led onto citizenship requirements. Or they'd ask how much the shelter, food, and care would cost....yearly.
You see....Amnesty International didn't want to go and spoil or screw-up this nifty barometric index. They needed numbers to go in, and come out.....to reach their desired conclusion.
Back in the spring of 2014, I have no doubt that ninety-percent of Germans were kinda open toward helping refugees. By mid-summer, and the high numbers adding up.....with cost being discussed weekly by German states....things changed. By mid-2015, I'd say at best....maybe eighty-percent of Germans were friendly on this business. By mid-January.....it's somewhere between forty and fifty-percent of German adults who lean toward a friendly nature.
Some Germans will tell you that as long as there is no cost to this....fine. Some will say that as long as it doesn't lead to immigration or integration issues....fine. Some will even say that certain religious groups are more accepting than other groups (without saying which one bothers them to some degree).
If you ask 99-percent of McDonalds visitors (regular guests) about their feeling for McDonalds....it's probably 95-percent pro-McDonalds. If you ask people who rarely go.....it's probably a 5-percent pro-McDonalds feeling. That's the problem with statistical data collected and how it gets used.
If you listed the top thirty platform items of the 1932 Nationalists Socialists Party (Nazi Party)....without saying Nazi.....most Germans (my humble bet of seventy-five percent) would say they readily approve of the platforms of such a political party. Once you mention it's all Nazi platform positions.....well.....they get all jerky and upset.
So, when you sit down at the pub in the next week, with a German or two.....bring up the index, and let the Germans know (with a big hug) that you really think it's nice of them to be regarded as such a welcoming society for refugees (made number two in the world). Maybe you'd even buy them a beer for so nice.
After a minute or two, while this German probably simmers with some frustrating words and comments....they'd respond that they try to be nice, but this always ends up with the Germans looking like idiots or spending untold amounts of money that simply doesn't exist. Then you, as the American, would pat them on the back and state that it's fine that Germany beats America once again.....really fine in fact. Then you respond that you kinda hope that refugees get this index information to help them decide on the best country to move into.
The German gets a bit worried then......asking if the index would ONLY MAKE more refugees seek to move to Germany. You'd say.....ABSOLUTELY. Then they'd grumble even more.
Whether intentional or by accident......Amnesty International has done Germany an enormous negative 'gift'. People evaluating where to go as a refugee.....will pick Germany over all other competitors.
Once, There were German Men
Focus, the German news magazine, did a short piece today on the New Year's Eve episode in Koln.....discussing the impact of the riot.
First, there's a small tidbit which the local authorities will share....they've convicted nine guys so far. Please note.....all nine were convicted on theft charges only. To this date.....NOT one single case has resulted in a assault or sexual assault conviction. I believe the year will end and we will even get to the state election there in Koln next spring.....without a single conviction on assault charges.
The second item which they discuss is from Jorg Baberowski who is a German historian and author. He's examined numerous videos from the evening in question and read a number of reports. He's come to this interesting conclusion.
When there were instances of couples (men and women) in the middle of an assault....there simply weren't any German men to react and use violence against the men who were groping or sexually assaulting their wives.
As Baberowski noted.....these men didn't know how to react to violence.....they were going to to relay upon the state apparatus....the cops.....to fix things.
Baberowski even notes that if the state does not assert itself, or come to solve this issue....confidence by the general public will fall from a great height.
Then we come to the last part of Baberowski's observations. He says nothing within this episode at the Koln train station really involves Islam. Instead, it involves the refugee camps that the Germans run, and how no central authority establishes security or rules. So in the end.....in these refugee camps...a central group of camp members.....men....end up taking control and running things (like a prison would be if guards don't do their function).
We are five months past the Koln episode. Almost five hundred sexual assault reports were filed. Statsitically alone.....it's screwed up their safety record for at least two or three years and will be a major discrepancy which neither the center-left or center-right political party can say or do much about. It is a massive vote problem for either to explain and in the state election there.....still ten months away.....I can only see this as going heavily for AfD support.
The German guy of the 1914 versus the German guy of 2016? If you go back and read the various reports in the period of the first year of the war.....German men were fairly quick to react, and in some cases....killed a few folks by accident. If they felt you were a possible Russian, French or Brit guy.....it'd only take a minute for things to unravel and you'd be laying on the ground.....just hoping that the police came along to save you.
The pacifism that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s? It has changed German character a great bit. Oddly, the authority over the pacifism.....women.....are the ones greatly affected by the sexual assaults and probably were hoping for the old-style German guy to arrive, and never did. It says alot about German culture today.
First, there's a small tidbit which the local authorities will share....they've convicted nine guys so far. Please note.....all nine were convicted on theft charges only. To this date.....NOT one single case has resulted in a assault or sexual assault conviction. I believe the year will end and we will even get to the state election there in Koln next spring.....without a single conviction on assault charges.
The second item which they discuss is from Jorg Baberowski who is a German historian and author. He's examined numerous videos from the evening in question and read a number of reports. He's come to this interesting conclusion.
When there were instances of couples (men and women) in the middle of an assault....there simply weren't any German men to react and use violence against the men who were groping or sexually assaulting their wives.
As Baberowski noted.....these men didn't know how to react to violence.....they were going to to relay upon the state apparatus....the cops.....to fix things.
Baberowski even notes that if the state does not assert itself, or come to solve this issue....confidence by the general public will fall from a great height.
Then we come to the last part of Baberowski's observations. He says nothing within this episode at the Koln train station really involves Islam. Instead, it involves the refugee camps that the Germans run, and how no central authority establishes security or rules. So in the end.....in these refugee camps...a central group of camp members.....men....end up taking control and running things (like a prison would be if guards don't do their function).
We are five months past the Koln episode. Almost five hundred sexual assault reports were filed. Statsitically alone.....it's screwed up their safety record for at least two or three years and will be a major discrepancy which neither the center-left or center-right political party can say or do much about. It is a massive vote problem for either to explain and in the state election there.....still ten months away.....I can only see this as going heavily for AfD support.
The German guy of the 1914 versus the German guy of 2016? If you go back and read the various reports in the period of the first year of the war.....German men were fairly quick to react, and in some cases....killed a few folks by accident. If they felt you were a possible Russian, French or Brit guy.....it'd only take a minute for things to unravel and you'd be laying on the ground.....just hoping that the police came along to save you.
The pacifism that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s? It has changed German character a great bit. Oddly, the authority over the pacifism.....women.....are the ones greatly affected by the sexual assaults and probably were hoping for the old-style German guy to arrive, and never did. It says alot about German culture today.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
The 37-Grad Documentary Piece
ZDF, Channel Two here in Germany and public-run, last night ran an episode of 37 Grad. It's a documentary show, which goes to tell a story. Some of the stories that they've run....have been fairly depressing (dwelling on approaching death, or some rare cancer), and some have been about challenging circumstances in life.
So, this episode dealt with Stefan Arzberger. I know.....he's not exactly a household name.
Arzberger is this German guy who lives in Leipzig and is fairly well known around the concert and opera world of Germany. He's a member of the Leipzig String Quartet, and make trips to various international cities to play for the classical music crowd.
Arzberger was visiting New York City in March of 2015. This was part of a concert tour, and he was up late one night....sitting the bar of the Hudson Hotel (near Central Park). Somewhere around midnight is the last time someone noted the guy there in the pub.
Around five to six in the morning (at least by one account of the story).....Arzberger is in the hallway of his floor of the hotel....naked....knocking on doors.
One lady finally opens her door.....guest gal from North Carolina around 64 years old at the time. What occurs next is bizarre. He grabs a hold on her and is chocking her enough to burst some blood vessels to her eyes (her claim), and banging her against the wall. Luckily, some maid or floor employee was around.....stopped the guy (maybe knocking him down) and cops get called.
Cops never drug-test the guy.....but it's not required either.
The cops arrest him and take him downtown.
The charges will later be attempted murder, assault and burglary. What Arzberger later says is that he had some gal in his room (really a transvestite) and she robbed him.....while he was doped up on something that she gave to him.
He says it was the drug given, that made him act "funny".
So, the NY court system has been going through the sequences here. They took away his passport and have made him stay in NY City. He's got no real money left, and his wife in Germany has been attempting to raise funds. He lives with some fairly well known German and simply walks around the city.....waiting on his court episode to unfold. Numerous art people and journalists have identified with his case and think it's rather unfair. Obviously, even as the 37 Grad story is told.....it's just unfair to keep him there.
The 37 Grad story left out the fact that the North Carolina gal intends to do civil action and this could be a half-million-dollar case easily. "Unfair" got layered across this thirty-minute documentary in a thick manner. If you judged his case strictly by the documentary.....he ought to be free.
I sat this afternoon and spent forty-five minutes reading various non-German articles over the episode.
Frankly, I think the guy has a pretty tough case. At the minimum......on assault.....it's an easy conviction and in NY City.....without the cooperation of the gal he was hurting.....it's easy win for the prosecution. One year.....maybe two in prison.
The attempted murder charge? I think he could easily beat, and the burglary charge is weak....based on what the NY writers say.
In some ways, I feel sorry for the guy because he was doped up at some point, and he's probably very embarrassed with his wife over having the male-gal in his room. But he clobbered and hurt this North Carolina gal to the maximum degree. He will have to eventually settle with her and pay her off in some manner....to avoid her being a serious witness against him in court.
So, this episode dealt with Stefan Arzberger. I know.....he's not exactly a household name.
Arzberger is this German guy who lives in Leipzig and is fairly well known around the concert and opera world of Germany. He's a member of the Leipzig String Quartet, and make trips to various international cities to play for the classical music crowd.
Arzberger was visiting New York City in March of 2015. This was part of a concert tour, and he was up late one night....sitting the bar of the Hudson Hotel (near Central Park). Somewhere around midnight is the last time someone noted the guy there in the pub.
Around five to six in the morning (at least by one account of the story).....Arzberger is in the hallway of his floor of the hotel....naked....knocking on doors.
One lady finally opens her door.....guest gal from North Carolina around 64 years old at the time. What occurs next is bizarre. He grabs a hold on her and is chocking her enough to burst some blood vessels to her eyes (her claim), and banging her against the wall. Luckily, some maid or floor employee was around.....stopped the guy (maybe knocking him down) and cops get called.
Cops never drug-test the guy.....but it's not required either.
The cops arrest him and take him downtown.
The charges will later be attempted murder, assault and burglary. What Arzberger later says is that he had some gal in his room (really a transvestite) and she robbed him.....while he was doped up on something that she gave to him.
He says it was the drug given, that made him act "funny".
So, the NY court system has been going through the sequences here. They took away his passport and have made him stay in NY City. He's got no real money left, and his wife in Germany has been attempting to raise funds. He lives with some fairly well known German and simply walks around the city.....waiting on his court episode to unfold. Numerous art people and journalists have identified with his case and think it's rather unfair. Obviously, even as the 37 Grad story is told.....it's just unfair to keep him there.
The 37 Grad story left out the fact that the North Carolina gal intends to do civil action and this could be a half-million-dollar case easily. "Unfair" got layered across this thirty-minute documentary in a thick manner. If you judged his case strictly by the documentary.....he ought to be free.
I sat this afternoon and spent forty-five minutes reading various non-German articles over the episode.
Frankly, I think the guy has a pretty tough case. At the minimum......on assault.....it's an easy conviction and in NY City.....without the cooperation of the gal he was hurting.....it's easy win for the prosecution. One year.....maybe two in prison.
The attempted murder charge? I think he could easily beat, and the burglary charge is weak....based on what the NY writers say.
In some ways, I feel sorry for the guy because he was doped up at some point, and he's probably very embarrassed with his wife over having the male-gal in his room. But he clobbered and hurt this North Carolina gal to the maximum degree. He will have to eventually settle with her and pay her off in some manner....to avoid her being a serious witness against him in court.
The Non-Candidate for Chancellor
The Pfalz state government came together yesterday....SPD partners with the Greens and FDP. The situation is stabilized for the next five years.
This is an odd point for the SPD chief in the Pfalz....Malu Dreyer. She ran a successful campaign and had decent numbers for an ailing political party.
There's been talk that she ought to be pushed up to the national level and run as the SPD Chancellor candidate in the 2017 election.
Normally, you'd think that she'd grab onto the opportunity and run. Well....health issues exist. She has Multiple Sclerosis. It's taken a lot of effort to get her through the campaign period of 2016. Some people have doubts that she'll still be around as a active political figure in 2021 when the next election comes up in the Pfalz.
It's a curious set of cards that have been dealt to the SPD Party. Their one and only election where they can stand and brag.....carried on mostly by a candidate who is using an enormous amount of energy to make public appearances and deliver crisp four-star speeches. And she can't be of use for the national stage.
This is an odd point for the SPD chief in the Pfalz....Malu Dreyer. She ran a successful campaign and had decent numbers for an ailing political party.
There's been talk that she ought to be pushed up to the national level and run as the SPD Chancellor candidate in the 2017 election.
Normally, you'd think that she'd grab onto the opportunity and run. Well....health issues exist. She has Multiple Sclerosis. It's taken a lot of effort to get her through the campaign period of 2016. Some people have doubts that she'll still be around as a active political figure in 2021 when the next election comes up in the Pfalz.
It's a curious set of cards that have been dealt to the SPD Party. Their one and only election where they can stand and brag.....carried on mostly by a candidate who is using an enormous amount of energy to make public appearances and deliver crisp four-star speeches. And she can't be of use for the national stage.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
When They Won't Leave
Focus, the German news magazine, did a great update today on immigration numbers for the Maghreb countries (Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco).
For all of 2015, there were 26,000 individuals who came into German from the Maghreb region. At this point, the BAMF (the German agency for controlling and deciding your status) has made the decision over 2,605 such individuals, and only 53 were granted status. The rest....roughly 99-percent were refused the chance to stay.
So that brings us to the issue of what happened to the folks who failed? Well....more or less nothing. So far in 2016 (first quarter numbers only).....only 57 citizens from this region have accepted a ticket back home. The rest are still in Germany.
Whatever government money or social help that they had coming to them....is a question mark. No one says much.
Arrest or detention? No. If they are in some immigration center.....they likely still have a room, and get three hot meals a day. If they are employed somewhere? They probably continue working.
The 57 given status? It's a curious thing....the journalists didn't say a word, and I doubt that they asked any more questions of the government. The government certainly didn't volunteer how they came through the process. Maybe they were gay.....or Christians? You just don't know.
Now, it's also curious how this information came up....because the German government wasn't going to volunteer the data. A member of the Linke Party requested this at a public forum.
Whether the coalition government (CDU-CSU-SPD) likes it or not.....this delay in getting those folks to leave fits easily into negative news and simply generates more enthusiasm for the AfD or anti-coalition voters. In a way....the lack of action only incites Germans to be frustrated and angry with the results of immigration. The pro-immigration crowd? They mostly center their message on the Maghreb countries and continue to ask if it's 'safe' or not. If it's unsafe, then the BAMF would be forced to allow all of the applicants to stay.
Fixing this? Virtually impossible with the situation as it is today, and the coalition government. Even a year from now....the vast majority of failed applicants will still be in Germany. The only change might be that the applicants have fallen off the radar screen and be untrackable in Germany.....which will only infuriate the public even more.
For all of 2015, there were 26,000 individuals who came into German from the Maghreb region. At this point, the BAMF (the German agency for controlling and deciding your status) has made the decision over 2,605 such individuals, and only 53 were granted status. The rest....roughly 99-percent were refused the chance to stay.
So that brings us to the issue of what happened to the folks who failed? Well....more or less nothing. So far in 2016 (first quarter numbers only).....only 57 citizens from this region have accepted a ticket back home. The rest are still in Germany.
Whatever government money or social help that they had coming to them....is a question mark. No one says much.
Arrest or detention? No. If they are in some immigration center.....they likely still have a room, and get three hot meals a day. If they are employed somewhere? They probably continue working.
The 57 given status? It's a curious thing....the journalists didn't say a word, and I doubt that they asked any more questions of the government. The government certainly didn't volunteer how they came through the process. Maybe they were gay.....or Christians? You just don't know.
Now, it's also curious how this information came up....because the German government wasn't going to volunteer the data. A member of the Linke Party requested this at a public forum.
Whether the coalition government (CDU-CSU-SPD) likes it or not.....this delay in getting those folks to leave fits easily into negative news and simply generates more enthusiasm for the AfD or anti-coalition voters. In a way....the lack of action only incites Germans to be frustrated and angry with the results of immigration. The pro-immigration crowd? They mostly center their message on the Maghreb countries and continue to ask if it's 'safe' or not. If it's unsafe, then the BAMF would be forced to allow all of the applicants to stay.
Fixing this? Virtually impossible with the situation as it is today, and the coalition government. Even a year from now....the vast majority of failed applicants will still be in Germany. The only change might be that the applicants have fallen off the radar screen and be untrackable in Germany.....which will only infuriate the public even more.
Karlsuae Park
The first English Gardens that I ever visited in my life was in the late 1970s....the Frankfurt Botanischer Garten.
It was an accidental discovery and just luck that I stumbled across them.
For a young American who'd never seen or experienced the style and landscape.....I was kinda amazed. Things were organized....paths were professionally laid out....springs and ponds existed.....statues of Greek Goddesses were in full display.....and an occasional park bench sat there for you to quickly sit and reflect upon life.
There aren't that many English Gardens in the US. Central Park in NY City is among the best, and DC does try to make an attempt at such landscaping.
You could sit and read through through a piece of Robert Burns, Heminway, or Steinbeck. You could ponder upon fall approaching and the browning of the leaves. You could sit and ponder upon strange cultures or mysterious habits.
The English Gardens concept landscape started around 1700.....about fifty years after the Thirty Years War ended. Life was improving....people were living happy lives.....money was in abundance.....and the plague or Black Death was not apparently coming back (so they believed).
As Europeans came around to England and observed the idea....it spread.
Some of the finer English Gardens today? Vienna, Paris, Sydney and Melbourne are on the list.....but there's probably a hundred four-star gardens in existence.
This past weekend, I spent some time walking around the Karlsuae Park on the east side of Kassel. It faces the palace....the Orangerie, the place of residence for Landgrave Charles. They started in 1703 and finished in 1711. Today? It's a museum for science, and worth the visit, if you are in the local area (budget two hours for the museum, and at least three for the park).
The Karlsuae Park is an inviting place.....crafted with various trails for walking or biking. Dogs seem to love the open green areas.
If you needed some relaxation and a chance to really recharge your view on things.....then find a decent English Garden and go have a two-hour walk.
It was an accidental discovery and just luck that I stumbled across them.
For a young American who'd never seen or experienced the style and landscape.....I was kinda amazed. Things were organized....paths were professionally laid out....springs and ponds existed.....statues of Greek Goddesses were in full display.....and an occasional park bench sat there for you to quickly sit and reflect upon life.
There aren't that many English Gardens in the US. Central Park in NY City is among the best, and DC does try to make an attempt at such landscaping.
You could sit and read through through a piece of Robert Burns, Heminway, or Steinbeck. You could ponder upon fall approaching and the browning of the leaves. You could sit and ponder upon strange cultures or mysterious habits.
The English Gardens concept landscape started around 1700.....about fifty years after the Thirty Years War ended. Life was improving....people were living happy lives.....money was in abundance.....and the plague or Black Death was not apparently coming back (so they believed).As Europeans came around to England and observed the idea....it spread.
Some of the finer English Gardens today? Vienna, Paris, Sydney and Melbourne are on the list.....but there's probably a hundred four-star gardens in existence.
This past weekend, I spent some time walking around the Karlsuae Park on the east side of Kassel. It faces the palace....the Orangerie, the place of residence for Landgrave Charles. They started in 1703 and finished in 1711. Today? It's a museum for science, and worth the visit, if you are in the local area (budget two hours for the museum, and at least three for the park).
The Karlsuae Park is an inviting place.....crafted with various trails for walking or biking. Dogs seem to love the open green areas.
If you needed some relaxation and a chance to really recharge your view on things.....then find a decent English Garden and go have a two-hour walk.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
The Effects of War on a City
One of the things that you tend to notice after a trip to Kassel....is that it's a fairly well laid-out city....mostly with buildings built since 1945.
A curious guy would ask questions.
So, there is a story here.
By 1939, Kassel had roughly 240,000 people in the city or urban area.....which made it a fairly significant city and industrial area.
Their chief market? It's a curious deal. They had Fieseler, which produced various fighter-bombers, and by 1941....were even producing the V-1 unmanned 'rockets'. They also had Henschel and Sons, which were the dominate railway engineer producer of Germany, and by 1942....were producing the Tiger tank (the primary tank for the German Army).
On top of these huge industrial sites....they also had a major railway depot, and had a major military headquarters for the region.
All of this led to the Allies to evaluate the industrial capability, the railways, the military capability, and the manpower who built the tanks and aircraft.
On 22-23 October of 1943.....bombing commenced. Fires raged on for several days after the bombing....mostly because of the extent and inability of the city to react to everything. Ten thousand residents were killed, and roughly two-thirds of the town's residents were bombed out or burned out of their homes. There was just not that much left of the city after this episode.
Over five-hundred bombers from the UK were part of this bombing run, and over 1,800 tons of bombs dropped.
What you can generally say is that the capability of Fieseler to continue making fighter-bombers at the pace they had been at....ended. No one cites numbers, but you can look at images of the city and realize that trying to put together repairs and put the factory back to 100-percent just wasn't going to happen.
Added to this destruction? Tiger tanks just weren't produced at the same level as they had prior to October of 1943. So when the Allies came to the Normandy invasion in June of 1944....eight months later....the level of tanks that Germany should have had.....weren't existing. They were in lesser numbers and you had to be strategic in the placement and use of the remaining tanks.
When the Americans rolled into Kassel in April of 1945.....it was to conduct one of the last battles in Germany. For roughly four days....the remains of the German Army put up a fight. By 2 April, the battle had turned into a house by house effort, and caused more destruction on top of what the bombing had done twenty months prior. The battle would end on 4 April with the Germans agreeing that there just wasn't any real capability left that they could throw into the fight.
If you were standing there on 5 April....looking over the city, it was a mess. Block after block, total destruction.
So, in the early 1950s.....it was decided that the German government would sponsor a garden show in Kassel. To make this work and really put enthusiasm into this effort.....tons of state capital was poured into fixing up the city, on top of the efforts of the past decade.
Somewhere in my walk-around from this past weekend, they had various pictures.....1945 pictures versus 1955 pictures. Night, and day.....total opposites.
In some ways, it should a vast amount of determination of those who stayed in Kassel and helped to rebuild the city. The garden show and the state capital pumped in for the episode.....helped to speed up recovery.
Today, I'd say that the city is one of the more interesting medium sized cities of Germany, and the city park system is a five-star operation.
A curious guy would ask questions.
So, there is a story here.
By 1939, Kassel had roughly 240,000 people in the city or urban area.....which made it a fairly significant city and industrial area.
Their chief market? It's a curious deal. They had Fieseler, which produced various fighter-bombers, and by 1941....were even producing the V-1 unmanned 'rockets'. They also had Henschel and Sons, which were the dominate railway engineer producer of Germany, and by 1942....were producing the Tiger tank (the primary tank for the German Army).
On top of these huge industrial sites....they also had a major railway depot, and had a major military headquarters for the region.
All of this led to the Allies to evaluate the industrial capability, the railways, the military capability, and the manpower who built the tanks and aircraft.
On 22-23 October of 1943.....bombing commenced. Fires raged on for several days after the bombing....mostly because of the extent and inability of the city to react to everything. Ten thousand residents were killed, and roughly two-thirds of the town's residents were bombed out or burned out of their homes. There was just not that much left of the city after this episode.
Over five-hundred bombers from the UK were part of this bombing run, and over 1,800 tons of bombs dropped.
What you can generally say is that the capability of Fieseler to continue making fighter-bombers at the pace they had been at....ended. No one cites numbers, but you can look at images of the city and realize that trying to put together repairs and put the factory back to 100-percent just wasn't going to happen.
Added to this destruction? Tiger tanks just weren't produced at the same level as they had prior to October of 1943. So when the Allies came to the Normandy invasion in June of 1944....eight months later....the level of tanks that Germany should have had.....weren't existing. They were in lesser numbers and you had to be strategic in the placement and use of the remaining tanks.
When the Americans rolled into Kassel in April of 1945.....it was to conduct one of the last battles in Germany. For roughly four days....the remains of the German Army put up a fight. By 2 April, the battle had turned into a house by house effort, and caused more destruction on top of what the bombing had done twenty months prior. The battle would end on 4 April with the Germans agreeing that there just wasn't any real capability left that they could throw into the fight.
If you were standing there on 5 April....looking over the city, it was a mess. Block after block, total destruction.
So, in the early 1950s.....it was decided that the German government would sponsor a garden show in Kassel. To make this work and really put enthusiasm into this effort.....tons of state capital was poured into fixing up the city, on top of the efforts of the past decade.
Somewhere in my walk-around from this past weekend, they had various pictures.....1945 pictures versus 1955 pictures. Night, and day.....total opposites.
In some ways, it should a vast amount of determination of those who stayed in Kassel and helped to rebuild the city. The garden show and the state capital pumped in for the episode.....helped to speed up recovery.
Today, I'd say that the city is one of the more interesting medium sized cities of Germany, and the city park system is a five-star operation.
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