Schlesweg-Holstein's state election is in seven days. If you go back to late December....the polls showed the CDU safely at 34-percent in the lead....making Merkel fairly happy. The SPD was sitting at 26-percent. Oddly 90 days later, with Schulz as the new leader of the SPD....the Schlesweg-Holstein poll was done again...reversing....SPD leading with 33-percent, and the CDU at 27-percent.
Saarland kinda changed the landscape on polls and election results.
Schulz and the state SPD team could lose this election by 2 or 3 points, and it'd be acceptable. If there is a 10-point spread, with the CDU winning, there's some heavy problems at work here (mostly for Schulz).
What people are quietly pointing out is that that while they might like Schulz in some ways, this idea of a SPD-Green-Linke Party coalition for the government is not making a fair segment of the SPD voters happy.
Normally....NO ONE goes out with some coalition talk until the night of election. This is one odd thing that you notice about German politics. There might be some gossip leading up to the weeks prior to the election, but you don't come out almost a year ahead of the election with some agreed upon coalition plan.
About five months ago, the SPD, Greens and Linke Party held a private weekend meeting, and came out with their charter.....they had all the topics laid out and reached their agreement on how the coalition would work. At the time, news journalists were all peppy and positive. I just sat there and thought.....across the nation....probably a third of all traditional SPD voters would absolutely not want to be part of a Linke Party situation.
How did this idea of a coalition deal come to be? Unknown.
There is this one odd aspect of the SPD election.....they went out two years ago and hired a political analyst/strategist from the Obama 2012 election team. At the time, I thought this was strange....there are plenty of German strategists around for these elections. The only thing I could see is that he's there to shake up the election and find new ways to draw people over to the party.
Maybe this guy talked the SPD into this early coalition chit-chat....thinking that big-team idea would make people happy.
So Schulz is sitting in a difficult position. If Schulz has some ten-point loss, there's likely to be a meeting where they cancel out the coalition idea and hint that they would invite the CDU as a partner. No one will take this serious.....in my humble opinion, but at least they tried.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
French Election Situation
The Macron - Le Pen race is on in France, and about a week to go. It's safe to say that Macron is around 16 points ahead of Le Pen and it's doubtful in seven days that Le Pen can change much about that.
But I noticed today from a Reuters piece....that a new poll came out and asked some critical questions to the French public.
In general....almost half the voting public doesn't believe either person can do much about the unemployment situation in France. Unlike the Trump-talk of 2016....neither has done much of anything to suggest that they can fix this. Le Pen should have sat down in 2016 and gotten a dozen smart business guys to talk about the future and how to inspire more jobs....but she apparently didn't think that way.
Almost a third of all voters also think that neither Macron or Le Pen will do much of anything to stop terror attacks. The state of emergency underway now? Expected to just continue on....no matter who wins. Le Pen has talked of expelling people but the courts would likely step in and stop most of that. More cops? That's been discussed and already in the implementation process....but you won't see any real effect for another two years, as they go recruit and train the new cops.
Oddly, they didn't ask about the EU-feeling among the general public. My humble guess is that around 35-percent are anti-EU.
In some ways, I think that Le Pen ran a lite-campaign. Maybe she figured she'd be edged out anyway and be unable to get past 35-percent.
Macron? The empty-suit guy? I think he's just begging for negativity to start up by the second year, as people figure out his weak platform and that he's really not well-equipped for the leadership job.
The shock if Le Pen did win? You'd have to have a large segment of French stay home and refuse to vote for Macron.....and a large segment of socialists find some odd reason to vote for Le Pen. I doubt if this can occur. But the EU shock would be dramatic. They'd be sitting there for days trying to understand how Macron failed to get the necessary votes.
But I noticed today from a Reuters piece....that a new poll came out and asked some critical questions to the French public.
In general....almost half the voting public doesn't believe either person can do much about the unemployment situation in France. Unlike the Trump-talk of 2016....neither has done much of anything to suggest that they can fix this. Le Pen should have sat down in 2016 and gotten a dozen smart business guys to talk about the future and how to inspire more jobs....but she apparently didn't think that way.
Almost a third of all voters also think that neither Macron or Le Pen will do much of anything to stop terror attacks. The state of emergency underway now? Expected to just continue on....no matter who wins. Le Pen has talked of expelling people but the courts would likely step in and stop most of that. More cops? That's been discussed and already in the implementation process....but you won't see any real effect for another two years, as they go recruit and train the new cops.
Oddly, they didn't ask about the EU-feeling among the general public. My humble guess is that around 35-percent are anti-EU.
In some ways, I think that Le Pen ran a lite-campaign. Maybe she figured she'd be edged out anyway and be unable to get past 35-percent.
Macron? The empty-suit guy? I think he's just begging for negativity to start up by the second year, as people figure out his weak platform and that he's really not well-equipped for the leadership job.
The shock if Le Pen did win? You'd have to have a large segment of French stay home and refuse to vote for Macron.....and a large segment of socialists find some odd reason to vote for Le Pen. I doubt if this can occur. But the EU shock would be dramatic. They'd be sitting there for days trying to understand how Macron failed to get the necessary votes.
Power Consumption Story
One of the things that Germans get a bit fanatical about (I hate calling it an obsession).....is electricity consumption, the attempt to use as little as possible.
For an American, it's one of the twenty-odd things that you notice the first month after you arrive and get to know Germans. I noticed today out of N-TV....an article that looked at the general consumption in a one-person and two-person house.
In a one-person house....1,300 Kilowatt hours (kWh) is the low average for a year (does not include hot water heating). Mid-range goes to 2,000 to 3,000.....and high is 4,000 kWh.
In a two-person house.....2,100 kWh is the low average for a year, with 3,000 to 3,600 as medium and more than 4400 kWh noted as the high side.
The going rate (generally) is around.30 cents per kWh, so you can figure a young guy (single person apartment)...is spending near 390 Euro a year on electricity. At the high end for a single-person? 1,200 Euro a year.
All of this drives people to be fanatical about consumption. For example, there are info sheets on electrical devices like freezers, coffee makers, and washers now....which tell you the average consumption rate and give it a grade. Germans actually read the sheets and make comparisons.
I sat and watched a TV info piece last year....some older German couple who had this 1988 freezer in the basement.....still operational and you could tell that the old guy really didn't have a desire to replace the freezer. The electrical expert came in....gave the big test deal, and then announced that the guy was paying near four-times the yearly cost of a more modern freezer. If he'd go out and buy a new freezer, it would have paid him back for the cost in just four years.
So if some German associate acts compulsive about turning things off or using dim lights...there's a logical reason for that behavior.
For an American, it's one of the twenty-odd things that you notice the first month after you arrive and get to know Germans. I noticed today out of N-TV....an article that looked at the general consumption in a one-person and two-person house.
In a one-person house....1,300 Kilowatt hours (kWh) is the low average for a year (does not include hot water heating). Mid-range goes to 2,000 to 3,000.....and high is 4,000 kWh.
In a two-person house.....2,100 kWh is the low average for a year, with 3,000 to 3,600 as medium and more than 4400 kWh noted as the high side.
The going rate (generally) is around.30 cents per kWh, so you can figure a young guy (single person apartment)...is spending near 390 Euro a year on electricity. At the high end for a single-person? 1,200 Euro a year.
All of this drives people to be fanatical about consumption. For example, there are info sheets on electrical devices like freezers, coffee makers, and washers now....which tell you the average consumption rate and give it a grade. Germans actually read the sheets and make comparisons.
I sat and watched a TV info piece last year....some older German couple who had this 1988 freezer in the basement.....still operational and you could tell that the old guy really didn't have a desire to replace the freezer. The electrical expert came in....gave the big test deal, and then announced that the guy was paying near four-times the yearly cost of a more modern freezer. If he'd go out and buy a new freezer, it would have paid him back for the cost in just four years.
So if some German associate acts compulsive about turning things off or using dim lights...there's a logical reason for that behavior.
Saturday, April 29, 2017
This One Odd Aspect of BREXIT
For months, I've been watching the BREXIT business unfold, and now it's a fascinating thing to watch dealings between the EU and the UK occur.
One of the major topics has been the suggestion by various folks (mostly Germans) that banks in London will need to pack and leave....so the suggestion by the Germans has been that they might relocate into Frankfurt. For a long time.....I believed the idea. This week, I've come to step away from that.
It's an factor about banks. They hate regulation.
Regulation means a threat of court action and fines.....if you screw up.
So you have to ask yourself.....the king of regulations at present is the EU. What bank would really enjoy moving into Frankfurt and place itself to be heavily regulated over the next decade?
Yeah, I came to this realization. Maybe there is an effort to review options, know the cost of moving into Frankfurt, and ask how employees feel about this. But when you get down to the idea of moving into a place where hefty and additional regulations will more than likely occur.....well....what idiot would do that?
So, I'm of the mind that most all of the banks in London.....will remain there. They might find a hundred employees and move a small group into Frankfurt, just to have some EU representation....but I doubt if anything now moves.
One of the major topics has been the suggestion by various folks (mostly Germans) that banks in London will need to pack and leave....so the suggestion by the Germans has been that they might relocate into Frankfurt. For a long time.....I believed the idea. This week, I've come to step away from that.
It's an factor about banks. They hate regulation.
Regulation means a threat of court action and fines.....if you screw up.
So you have to ask yourself.....the king of regulations at present is the EU. What bank would really enjoy moving into Frankfurt and place itself to be heavily regulated over the next decade?
Yeah, I came to this realization. Maybe there is an effort to review options, know the cost of moving into Frankfurt, and ask how employees feel about this. But when you get down to the idea of moving into a place where hefty and additional regulations will more than likely occur.....well....what idiot would do that?
So, I'm of the mind that most all of the banks in London.....will remain there. They might find a hundred employees and move a small group into Frankfurt, just to have some EU representation....but I doubt if anything now moves.
Friday, April 28, 2017
Alt-Right Media?
In Austria, it's a fairly debated topic on immigrants, asylum and migration. Based on polls, voting and general discussion....it's about 50-50 on the split of the country. Some will say that the news media (talking mostly over the state-run ORF) has used bias coverage and arranged debate forums with expected outcomes. Newspapers are independent and are generally split on coverage.
I noticed this past week that the Red Bull CEO (Dietrich Mateschitz) has had a public comment or two....that there is too much bias news in Austria. He wants to level the playing field. His suggestion? He might go and fund a Breitbart-type alt-right news site. He's got a billionaire-status and could throw twenty-million Euro at some idea like this....aiming it at Austria, Switzerland, and Germany (all Germanic-speaking countries).
To be honest, alt-right doesn't exist in the Germanic region right now. There are varying reasons for this.
First, public TV (ORF, ARD, ZDF, and the rest) will say that they are providing a voice for the general public via the chat forums that exist. The fact that a growing number of people aren't viewers of public TV (even though they are forced into paying the tax) hasn't registered much with the public TV enthusiasts.
Second, the left-of-center and right-of-center political folks are trying desperately to keep the focus on this gimmick. The fact that in Austria during the last big election....both left-of-center and right-of-center lost in major numbers, and you see the same thing in last weekend's France election (less than 25-percent went for the normal two parties).....hasn't really registered with journalists yet.
Third, the thrust of the immigration and migration control topic, is mostly now at the EU. It's difficult to see any change coming until spring of 2019.....when another election occurs to decide the basis of representation at the EU. Oddly, you'd look at the timing of this Mateschitz comment and possible creation of a alt-right media device, and think that it might have a serious effect for the 2019 EU election.....if an alt-right news media were around for a year.
Something to worry about? Look, there's already a alt-left type media in existence....so it's hard to argue the alt-right worry, with things as they are. If Mateschitz does create this device....it'll be amusing that someone tries to suggest creating an alt-left media.....because it's already there.
I noticed this past week that the Red Bull CEO (Dietrich Mateschitz) has had a public comment or two....that there is too much bias news in Austria. He wants to level the playing field. His suggestion? He might go and fund a Breitbart-type alt-right news site. He's got a billionaire-status and could throw twenty-million Euro at some idea like this....aiming it at Austria, Switzerland, and Germany (all Germanic-speaking countries).
To be honest, alt-right doesn't exist in the Germanic region right now. There are varying reasons for this.
First, public TV (ORF, ARD, ZDF, and the rest) will say that they are providing a voice for the general public via the chat forums that exist. The fact that a growing number of people aren't viewers of public TV (even though they are forced into paying the tax) hasn't registered much with the public TV enthusiasts.
Second, the left-of-center and right-of-center political folks are trying desperately to keep the focus on this gimmick. The fact that in Austria during the last big election....both left-of-center and right-of-center lost in major numbers, and you see the same thing in last weekend's France election (less than 25-percent went for the normal two parties).....hasn't really registered with journalists yet.
Third, the thrust of the immigration and migration control topic, is mostly now at the EU. It's difficult to see any change coming until spring of 2019.....when another election occurs to decide the basis of representation at the EU. Oddly, you'd look at the timing of this Mateschitz comment and possible creation of a alt-right media device, and think that it might have a serious effect for the 2019 EU election.....if an alt-right news media were around for a year.
Something to worry about? Look, there's already a alt-left type media in existence....so it's hard to argue the alt-right worry, with things as they are. If Mateschitz does create this device....it'll be amusing that someone tries to suggest creating an alt-left media.....because it's already there.
The Fake Refugee Story
It's one of those odd stories from Germany that draw you to ask a lot of questions.
"Johan" (my made-up name for this guy) was a young junior officer in the German Bundeswehr. Twenty-eight years old.....he is originally out of Offenbach (a 'burb' to the east of Frankfurt and a area with a very high non-Germans as residents). No one says that Johan himself is second or third generation German. His dad was a fruit merchant in Offenbach.
So somewhere in the period of January of 2016.....Johan showed up (while a member of the German Army) in Zirndorf, Germany (hundred km SE of Frankfurt). Johan is wearing appropriate refugee clothing, and is requesting asylum. He says.....although without papers.....he's Iraqi. He speaks to the guys there at the center in mostly broken French (the fact that he didn't speak any Arabic at all....should have been a BIG indicator of the bogus nature of his application).
The BamF folks accept the application, hand him some pocket money, assign him a room in the immigration center, and process his paperwork.
Now, you'd look at this and just feel....well...is it that easy for a non-refugee to apply and get past the entry situation? Yeah, it is that easy.
How this falls apart? Well, no one says why but this guy has made it to Vienna's airport for some reason....carrying a weapon, and hides it in the toilet area. It's found and the cops figure out who the guy is, and an investigation occurs. They have the fingerprints from his application as an asylum-member and as a member of the Bundeswehr. My guess is that this opened up this cop investigation to a wider degree.
What is said now is that he had a conspiracy going on (at least one additional person, maybe a dozen), homes have been searched, and the German government is trying to understand what the heck was the master plan of this small group of young men. Xenophobic has been uttered, but no one has aid out the plan in any detail.
My curiosity? It was this easy for a non-Iraqi who spoke only French, to pretend to be an Iraqi seeking asylum in Germany. So, how many more individuals did the same thing? A dozen? A hundred? Could Russian KGB guys have infiltrated Germany using the scheme?
Charges on the young officer? The pistol business at the Vienna Airport will be the most serious charge. My guess is that he's looking at three years of prison for the various counts involved. The refugee pocket-money that he's been getting monthly? That will come into play as well.
A movie script? Somewhere in the midst of this whole affair.....I see a five-star movie script waiting to be written and developed.
Had the airport gun epsiode never occurred? I think the guy could have carried this whole fake immigrant thing to the next level. He could have gone through German language school. He would have eventually gotten a German ID card. At some point, he could have disappeared from the Bundeswehr completely and just been some fake Iraqi-turned-German and start and entirely new life out of thin air.
"Johan" (my made-up name for this guy) was a young junior officer in the German Bundeswehr. Twenty-eight years old.....he is originally out of Offenbach (a 'burb' to the east of Frankfurt and a area with a very high non-Germans as residents). No one says that Johan himself is second or third generation German. His dad was a fruit merchant in Offenbach.
So somewhere in the period of January of 2016.....Johan showed up (while a member of the German Army) in Zirndorf, Germany (hundred km SE of Frankfurt). Johan is wearing appropriate refugee clothing, and is requesting asylum. He says.....although without papers.....he's Iraqi. He speaks to the guys there at the center in mostly broken French (the fact that he didn't speak any Arabic at all....should have been a BIG indicator of the bogus nature of his application).
The BamF folks accept the application, hand him some pocket money, assign him a room in the immigration center, and process his paperwork.
Now, you'd look at this and just feel....well...is it that easy for a non-refugee to apply and get past the entry situation? Yeah, it is that easy.
How this falls apart? Well, no one says why but this guy has made it to Vienna's airport for some reason....carrying a weapon, and hides it in the toilet area. It's found and the cops figure out who the guy is, and an investigation occurs. They have the fingerprints from his application as an asylum-member and as a member of the Bundeswehr. My guess is that this opened up this cop investigation to a wider degree.
What is said now is that he had a conspiracy going on (at least one additional person, maybe a dozen), homes have been searched, and the German government is trying to understand what the heck was the master plan of this small group of young men. Xenophobic has been uttered, but no one has aid out the plan in any detail.
My curiosity? It was this easy for a non-Iraqi who spoke only French, to pretend to be an Iraqi seeking asylum in Germany. So, how many more individuals did the same thing? A dozen? A hundred? Could Russian KGB guys have infiltrated Germany using the scheme?
Charges on the young officer? The pistol business at the Vienna Airport will be the most serious charge. My guess is that he's looking at three years of prison for the various counts involved. The refugee pocket-money that he's been getting monthly? That will come into play as well.
A movie script? Somewhere in the midst of this whole affair.....I see a five-star movie script waiting to be written and developed.
Had the airport gun epsiode never occurred? I think the guy could have carried this whole fake immigrant thing to the next level. He could have gone through German language school. He would have eventually gotten a German ID card. At some point, he could have disappeared from the Bundeswehr completely and just been some fake Iraqi-turned-German and start and entirely new life out of thin air.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
The Early Retirement Story
Early retirement in Germany.....is something that rarely happens. Typically, it's a guy who was cop, fireman, or successful businessman. Beyond that group, it's tough to go and get a doctor's note to say that your health (mental or physical) is so bad.....that you should be allowed your social pension early.
So in today's news, I noticed this piece from WDR (public TV) which chatted about this issue and the prosecution office in Munster.
No one says precisely how this suspicion started up or if it was just statistical averages that pointed this out.....but there were a lot of folks coming up in Munster with notes from a particular psychiatrist (out of the Bochum region).
The claim here is that roughly 600 episodes came up in this one region, from this one doctor, and it's higher than it should be.....leading to a court review.
The accusation? Only an accusation. The talk is that he gave a false opinion for people to get early retirement. Added into this story is that people paid this guy money under the table....so the tax evasion folks are interested in this because it's all cash, and he never reported the income. The amounts suggested? Two thousand to seven thousand Euro. You can do the math here and figure that it's in the ballpark of 200,000 Euro or more that he made....tax-free....IF true.
Right now....at least twenty-seven cases are identified as fraud.
Prosecutors say that some folks were even coached on how to act (mentally ill) when boards were convened to push forward the paperwork to be approved.
A national problem? This was simply one particular area, but I would take a guess that across Germany (82-million)....there are hundreds each month working on some scheme, with some doctor and trying to find a way to get early retirement.
The general problem is that the national social pension program is not exactly healthy and with the birth-rate problem....you really can't allow fraudulent early retirement to occur.
When you normally see early and legitimate early retirement in Germany....it's usually back issues, or extreme stress (where yearly visits to the 'Kur' have occurred), and there's just no way for the guy or gal to go back into work. My father-in-law (long passed) was a German roofer, and by his early 60s.....he was one of the legit early retirees.
The curious thing to this is that all of these people identified under this doctor's medical notes....will be dragged back into another review board, and most will be told to "un-retire", and go back to work. Imagine these characters showing up at the local jobs office....fifty to sixty years old, and having to find some kind of job to get them back into the real world.
So in today's news, I noticed this piece from WDR (public TV) which chatted about this issue and the prosecution office in Munster.
No one says precisely how this suspicion started up or if it was just statistical averages that pointed this out.....but there were a lot of folks coming up in Munster with notes from a particular psychiatrist (out of the Bochum region).
The claim here is that roughly 600 episodes came up in this one region, from this one doctor, and it's higher than it should be.....leading to a court review.
The accusation? Only an accusation. The talk is that he gave a false opinion for people to get early retirement. Added into this story is that people paid this guy money under the table....so the tax evasion folks are interested in this because it's all cash, and he never reported the income. The amounts suggested? Two thousand to seven thousand Euro. You can do the math here and figure that it's in the ballpark of 200,000 Euro or more that he made....tax-free....IF true.
Right now....at least twenty-seven cases are identified as fraud.
Prosecutors say that some folks were even coached on how to act (mentally ill) when boards were convened to push forward the paperwork to be approved.
A national problem? This was simply one particular area, but I would take a guess that across Germany (82-million)....there are hundreds each month working on some scheme, with some doctor and trying to find a way to get early retirement.
The general problem is that the national social pension program is not exactly healthy and with the birth-rate problem....you really can't allow fraudulent early retirement to occur.
When you normally see early and legitimate early retirement in Germany....it's usually back issues, or extreme stress (where yearly visits to the 'Kur' have occurred), and there's just no way for the guy or gal to go back into work. My father-in-law (long passed) was a German roofer, and by his early 60s.....he was one of the legit early retirees.
The curious thing to this is that all of these people identified under this doctor's medical notes....will be dragged back into another review board, and most will be told to "un-retire", and go back to work. Imagine these characters showing up at the local jobs office....fifty to sixty years old, and having to find some kind of job to get them back into the real world.
Germany, Cars, and A Short Discussion
There are a couple of car-related things going on in Germany, which deserves one's attention, and a fair amount of pondering.
First, this past week....the Bundestag (the parliament) said 'no' to the EU proposal for more stringent controls (regulations) on auto emissions. DW reported this. One of the interesting aspects of the EU plan for control....was that they'd actually go and conduct on-the-spot emissions tests.
You can imagine German politicians (from both the SPD and CDU) standing there and having to react to some EU bureaucrat chatting away about tests conducted in Dresden or Munich, and you can't be a 100-percent sure about the reliability of the tests or the agenda tied to the tests.
One of the curious pieces of the regulation that the Germans pushed back against....was that if a German auto maker made a car and sold it.....and it was later found to be conflicting with emissions standards, then the car company would have to take possession of the car (compensating the owner in some way), and then pay the EU 30,000 Euro per vehicle as a 'fine'. You imagine how VW, Opel, or Ford managers felt about that type of threat. One screw-up could basically bankrupt a company.
Funny how even the Germans can hate the EU for its regulation-creation ideas.
So, you come to the second big car discussion....diesel emissions. It's openly discussed now that even with the new level of diesel vehicle categories (Euro-6)....even with the most modern diesel cars made and sold in Germany....they aren't clean enough for the standards now set.
All of this naturally leaves the experts looking at filter-systems that would have to be added onto vehicles. The experts around Stuttgart, where this discussion originally started up....say the filter kit is 1,500 to 2,500 Euro. So far, no one wants to talk much on who is going to pay for the kit (the vehicle owner obviously). A month ago, I read a piece by one diesel owner who voiced the concern that you'd go and do this really stupid thing of paying for the kit out of your own pocket....only to learn two years later that his installed filter needs to be replaced with another newly developed and much improved kit....for another 1,500 Euro. He might have a point on this discussion.
Finally, you come to the electrical car discussion, with the 2030 date sitting there in full view. By 2030, unless something changes.....new car sales will be limited in Germany to strictly electric cars. The general public doesn't chat much on this. The general public at this point....aren't very hyped up about electric cars, with the yearly sum sold in the 4-digit range at present.
In virtually every direction you turn....there's impending or doomed regulation approaching on automobiles in Germany. No one can say with any real authority, how things will be in twenty years with cars on German roads.
First, this past week....the Bundestag (the parliament) said 'no' to the EU proposal for more stringent controls (regulations) on auto emissions. DW reported this. One of the interesting aspects of the EU plan for control....was that they'd actually go and conduct on-the-spot emissions tests.
You can imagine German politicians (from both the SPD and CDU) standing there and having to react to some EU bureaucrat chatting away about tests conducted in Dresden or Munich, and you can't be a 100-percent sure about the reliability of the tests or the agenda tied to the tests.
One of the curious pieces of the regulation that the Germans pushed back against....was that if a German auto maker made a car and sold it.....and it was later found to be conflicting with emissions standards, then the car company would have to take possession of the car (compensating the owner in some way), and then pay the EU 30,000 Euro per vehicle as a 'fine'. You imagine how VW, Opel, or Ford managers felt about that type of threat. One screw-up could basically bankrupt a company.
Funny how even the Germans can hate the EU for its regulation-creation ideas.
So, you come to the second big car discussion....diesel emissions. It's openly discussed now that even with the new level of diesel vehicle categories (Euro-6)....even with the most modern diesel cars made and sold in Germany....they aren't clean enough for the standards now set.
All of this naturally leaves the experts looking at filter-systems that would have to be added onto vehicles. The experts around Stuttgart, where this discussion originally started up....say the filter kit is 1,500 to 2,500 Euro. So far, no one wants to talk much on who is going to pay for the kit (the vehicle owner obviously). A month ago, I read a piece by one diesel owner who voiced the concern that you'd go and do this really stupid thing of paying for the kit out of your own pocket....only to learn two years later that his installed filter needs to be replaced with another newly developed and much improved kit....for another 1,500 Euro. He might have a point on this discussion.
Finally, you come to the electrical car discussion, with the 2030 date sitting there in full view. By 2030, unless something changes.....new car sales will be limited in Germany to strictly electric cars. The general public doesn't chat much on this. The general public at this point....aren't very hyped up about electric cars, with the yearly sum sold in the 4-digit range at present.
In virtually every direction you turn....there's impending or doomed regulation approaching on automobiles in Germany. No one can say with any real authority, how things will be in twenty years with cars on German roads.
Monday, April 24, 2017
CSU Leadership Story
The 'sister' party of Merkel's CDU Party.....is the CSU, who only operate in Bavaria. It's a handshake deal. Typically, in a national election....the CSU can deliver around 3.5 million votes (8-percent of the national vote).
For the past nine years....Horst Seehofer has run the regional party. He's 67 years old and last year....he hinted very strongly that he'd be retiring in the summer of 2018. The schedule talked about last year was that a Bavarian state election would happen in September of 2018, and new leadership would stand up and carry the party forward.
Yesterday, Seehofer said...well....things changed. He won't stand down, and he'll be the primary carrier of the CSU election in Bavaria in 2018.
Reason? Some people believe that Seehofer sees this comeback of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg occurring. After the scandal of the thesis episode, Guttenberg has lived outside of Germany for around seven years. There's been an invented way for Guttenberg to participate in this national election (Sep 2017)....with a couple of districts carved out where he will speak...shake hands...and talk up the future of conservative politics in Germany.
The belief is that Seehofer wants to see the CSU leadership role come to Guttenberg after this 2018 Bavaria election.
Oddly, this insider plan has one problem. For several years....the Bavarian finance minister....Markus Soder, has been sitting there and planning his moment where he'd become the next head of the CSU. For him, this Seehofer deal is a bit frustrating. For him to accept this, it means putting off his chief goal.
Guttenberg? He says mostly nothing. My guess is that Seehofer would announce some retirement in early 2019, and the party would quietly appoint Guttenberg into the leadership of the party. Nationally, Guttenberg might be the come-back-kid in 2021.
I know....a lot of speculation, and people preparing 'chess-like' moves way ahead of time.
The news media reaction? No one sees Guttenberg coming back, so this topic of conversation doesn't go far. Typically, no German politician after a big scandal has ever come back.
So, if you were looking for an odd political story, this is it.
For the past nine years....Horst Seehofer has run the regional party. He's 67 years old and last year....he hinted very strongly that he'd be retiring in the summer of 2018. The schedule talked about last year was that a Bavarian state election would happen in September of 2018, and new leadership would stand up and carry the party forward.
Yesterday, Seehofer said...well....things changed. He won't stand down, and he'll be the primary carrier of the CSU election in Bavaria in 2018.
Reason? Some people believe that Seehofer sees this comeback of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg occurring. After the scandal of the thesis episode, Guttenberg has lived outside of Germany for around seven years. There's been an invented way for Guttenberg to participate in this national election (Sep 2017)....with a couple of districts carved out where he will speak...shake hands...and talk up the future of conservative politics in Germany.
The belief is that Seehofer wants to see the CSU leadership role come to Guttenberg after this 2018 Bavaria election.
Oddly, this insider plan has one problem. For several years....the Bavarian finance minister....Markus Soder, has been sitting there and planning his moment where he'd become the next head of the CSU. For him, this Seehofer deal is a bit frustrating. For him to accept this, it means putting off his chief goal.
Guttenberg? He says mostly nothing. My guess is that Seehofer would announce some retirement in early 2019, and the party would quietly appoint Guttenberg into the leadership of the party. Nationally, Guttenberg might be the come-back-kid in 2021.
I know....a lot of speculation, and people preparing 'chess-like' moves way ahead of time.
The news media reaction? No one sees Guttenberg coming back, so this topic of conversation doesn't go far. Typically, no German politician after a big scandal has ever come back.
So, if you were looking for an odd political story, this is it.
The Statistics Story
At some point today (Monday), an official report will be handed to the public by the Interior Minister (de Maiziere). It's going to be a difficult report for journalists, intellectuals, and politicians to handle. Basically, the Interior Minister says that crime number in 2016 show a hefty contribution by immigrants, migrants and asylum seekers. The national numbers involving immigrants for crime investigation rose 57-percent, which worries the leadership within the Interior Ministry.
Hidden also within the numbers....more juvenile participants....both in violence and bodily harm.
Chief reason for migrant number surge?
There is this belief that a lot of young men arrived in 2014, 2015 and 2016 into Germany....and that a fair number drifted over into the occupation of crime. For some, without a family connection or stable lifestyle....it simply made sense. You can also say that a fair number arrived without any real plan....no real occupation or skill-set....and found that welfare payments in Germany won't cut it. Even if they did get a job....it's a basic pay situation....eight to nine Euro an hour. After you take out rent and heat from your check....there's just a limited or marginal amount of money left in the pot.
Chief reason for the juvenile issue?
No one took the statistics to the next level and asked if they relate to urban and rural splits....which I suspect they would show most of the juvenile surge came from major urban sectors of Germany. If you toss around the 15-percent number of Germans now and still on welfare....there's not much positive to say out of life as a kid in this atmosphere.
Fixing the increase in crime? All parties in the Bundestag, even the opposition folks....are super hyped-up on hiring more cops. It's one of those amazing things. You can't find a single political player in Berlin who is against the hiring of more cops now. Time period for hiring more cops? Well....here's the comical side of this story....it might be five years before the increase in cops is really felt across the 16 states. So, don't get too hopeful on things getting fixed soon.
One might look ahead over the next four years, and leading up to the 2021 national election....assuming that the crime problem continues and maybe even gets worse for 2017 and 2018. In which case....a lot of pressure will occur with the Bundestag to kick young male migrants out of the country if arrested for serious crimes.
One suggestion from the ARD article was that more language training needs to occur. But if you had burger-flipper skills and German ability.....it only leads to a marginalized job future and no real hope. So you drift over to crime anyway.
So you come to the last part of this story.....why release a report like this? Le Maiziere is slated to absolutely retire at the end of 2017. He has no more interest in staying on, and is of retirement age. I think he wants to stir the pot a bit.....with the Bundestag, Merkel, and the intellectual crowd. He's basically saying that hiring more cops won't really fix the root cause of the crime issue in Germany. You can discuss this in a hundred ways, but you come down to a large segment of people who have a very limited future...very unfocused on a path ahead....and a fairly easy entry into crime.
Hidden also within the numbers....more juvenile participants....both in violence and bodily harm.
Chief reason for migrant number surge?
There is this belief that a lot of young men arrived in 2014, 2015 and 2016 into Germany....and that a fair number drifted over into the occupation of crime. For some, without a family connection or stable lifestyle....it simply made sense. You can also say that a fair number arrived without any real plan....no real occupation or skill-set....and found that welfare payments in Germany won't cut it. Even if they did get a job....it's a basic pay situation....eight to nine Euro an hour. After you take out rent and heat from your check....there's just a limited or marginal amount of money left in the pot.
Chief reason for the juvenile issue?
No one took the statistics to the next level and asked if they relate to urban and rural splits....which I suspect they would show most of the juvenile surge came from major urban sectors of Germany. If you toss around the 15-percent number of Germans now and still on welfare....there's not much positive to say out of life as a kid in this atmosphere.
Fixing the increase in crime? All parties in the Bundestag, even the opposition folks....are super hyped-up on hiring more cops. It's one of those amazing things. You can't find a single political player in Berlin who is against the hiring of more cops now. Time period for hiring more cops? Well....here's the comical side of this story....it might be five years before the increase in cops is really felt across the 16 states. So, don't get too hopeful on things getting fixed soon.
One might look ahead over the next four years, and leading up to the 2021 national election....assuming that the crime problem continues and maybe even gets worse for 2017 and 2018. In which case....a lot of pressure will occur with the Bundestag to kick young male migrants out of the country if arrested for serious crimes.
One suggestion from the ARD article was that more language training needs to occur. But if you had burger-flipper skills and German ability.....it only leads to a marginalized job future and no real hope. So you drift over to crime anyway.
So you come to the last part of this story.....why release a report like this? Le Maiziere is slated to absolutely retire at the end of 2017. He has no more interest in staying on, and is of retirement age. I think he wants to stir the pot a bit.....with the Bundestag, Merkel, and the intellectual crowd. He's basically saying that hiring more cops won't really fix the root cause of the crime issue in Germany. You can discuss this in a hundred ways, but you come down to a large segment of people who have a very limited future...very unfocused on a path ahead....and a fairly easy entry into crime.
The Outcome in France
Round one is wrapped up.
Macron (Progressive Party) and Le Pen (National Front) advance on. Macron had 23.75-percent and Len Pen 21.50-percent).
Fillon, with his fake-pay scandal, had 19.90-percent, and Melenchon had 19.6-percent. Hamon from the Socialist Party rounded up things with 6.3-percent.
There are several observations that one can make out of the election.
1. Urban vote results appear to show Macron getting 35-percent in most areas around France....Le Pen in most urban areas got from marginal numbers to 10-percent in the same areas. Heartland affect is demonstrated.
2. The Socialist Party and the Republicans were the two big losers out of this election. Both had been major players in French politics for decades. Together, they barely got to 26-percent of the public vote. It's a massive indicator that the public have lost confidence with 'old' politics.
3. Corruption used to be an acceptable part of French politics. Something in this election occurred and shifted the corruption business to the unacceptable side of things. The fake pay issue really killed off Fillon. Right now.....he and his wife might get dragged into a court and charged. My suspicion is that he will quietly come up with the money and offer to repay every penny if they halt the process.
4. No matter who you watch from the European press, they all refer to Macron as an investment banker. He was an investment portfolio handler for the Rothschild Bank. They hired him with the ultimate desire that he did what he claimed he was an expert at.....preventing trails for audit by the national authorities. He was very successful at that. Using the term 'banker' is mostly a joke....he was the portfolio manager and saved some special clients a lot of stress.
5. Macron probably shocks the journalists the most because his party....the Progressive Party....has only existed for 13 months. How were they financed? No one seems interested in that amusing detail.
Looking ahead. The final election occurs in two weeks. I would speculate that Macron likely wins this with a 65-percent showing, and Le Pen might be able to generate at best a 35-percent showing (maybe even less). I would guess that fewer than a quarter of Fillon's voters, who ought to be the nearest base group, will be interested in Le Pen. From the rest of the candidates....fewer than two-percent would slide to Le Pen.
What this means? You can draw some conclusions:
1. BREXIT negotiations with Macron as the French President will be fairly difficult, and I suspect that within the two year timeframe.....no treaty occurs. (my humble guess)
2. Along about spring of 2018, some journalists in France will wake up and ask questions about the competence or capabilities of Macron. "Empty suit" will be uttered, and by the end of 2018....his positive numbers with the French public will have fallen to the mid-30's. By the summer of 2019....the public will be prepared for replacing him but they have to wait till April of 2022.
3. Le Pen will quietly work on the legislative elections and ensure that the National Front does get a record number of seats. She will still be around in 2022, and likely run one final time.
4. Germany and the EU are very happy with Macron....mostly because he gives good speeches. Zero chance of the EU dissolving (although Greece might eventually find itself removed).
5. The cabinet figures under Macron? Almost no French journalist has chatted about this. The party, being new, doesn't have a bunch of known figures attached to it. My humble guess is that it'll be a lot of business-related figures....some leading back to Rothschild.
My Le Pen view is that she needs to take the National Front onto the next stage. As corruption occurs with the Progressive Party bosses....challenge them and make the public feel accountable for putting them into positions of power.
Macron (Progressive Party) and Le Pen (National Front) advance on. Macron had 23.75-percent and Len Pen 21.50-percent).
Fillon, with his fake-pay scandal, had 19.90-percent, and Melenchon had 19.6-percent. Hamon from the Socialist Party rounded up things with 6.3-percent.
There are several observations that one can make out of the election.
1. Urban vote results appear to show Macron getting 35-percent in most areas around France....Le Pen in most urban areas got from marginal numbers to 10-percent in the same areas. Heartland affect is demonstrated.
2. The Socialist Party and the Republicans were the two big losers out of this election. Both had been major players in French politics for decades. Together, they barely got to 26-percent of the public vote. It's a massive indicator that the public have lost confidence with 'old' politics.
3. Corruption used to be an acceptable part of French politics. Something in this election occurred and shifted the corruption business to the unacceptable side of things. The fake pay issue really killed off Fillon. Right now.....he and his wife might get dragged into a court and charged. My suspicion is that he will quietly come up with the money and offer to repay every penny if they halt the process.
4. No matter who you watch from the European press, they all refer to Macron as an investment banker. He was an investment portfolio handler for the Rothschild Bank. They hired him with the ultimate desire that he did what he claimed he was an expert at.....preventing trails for audit by the national authorities. He was very successful at that. Using the term 'banker' is mostly a joke....he was the portfolio manager and saved some special clients a lot of stress.
5. Macron probably shocks the journalists the most because his party....the Progressive Party....has only existed for 13 months. How were they financed? No one seems interested in that amusing detail.
Looking ahead. The final election occurs in two weeks. I would speculate that Macron likely wins this with a 65-percent showing, and Le Pen might be able to generate at best a 35-percent showing (maybe even less). I would guess that fewer than a quarter of Fillon's voters, who ought to be the nearest base group, will be interested in Le Pen. From the rest of the candidates....fewer than two-percent would slide to Le Pen.
What this means? You can draw some conclusions:
1. BREXIT negotiations with Macron as the French President will be fairly difficult, and I suspect that within the two year timeframe.....no treaty occurs. (my humble guess)
2. Along about spring of 2018, some journalists in France will wake up and ask questions about the competence or capabilities of Macron. "Empty suit" will be uttered, and by the end of 2018....his positive numbers with the French public will have fallen to the mid-30's. By the summer of 2019....the public will be prepared for replacing him but they have to wait till April of 2022.
3. Le Pen will quietly work on the legislative elections and ensure that the National Front does get a record number of seats. She will still be around in 2022, and likely run one final time.
4. Germany and the EU are very happy with Macron....mostly because he gives good speeches. Zero chance of the EU dissolving (although Greece might eventually find itself removed).
5. The cabinet figures under Macron? Almost no French journalist has chatted about this. The party, being new, doesn't have a bunch of known figures attached to it. My humble guess is that it'll be a lot of business-related figures....some leading back to Rothschild.
My Le Pen view is that she needs to take the National Front onto the next stage. As corruption occurs with the Progressive Party bosses....challenge them and make the public feel accountable for putting them into positions of power.
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Everyday Things
Sometimes, you come across some article in the news and start to ponder the ultimate meaning of the article.
Today, I was reading a piece that the British insurance company Aviva wrote up. They put some guys up on a study of household functions and surveyed 2000-odd people.
Roughly 20-percent of people don't know how to change a bulb. Roughly one-third of people admitted they couldn't cook a true dinner from scratch. 37-percent said they were sure about being able to change a tire, while the rest were either unsure or definitely not able to change a tire.
Roughly two-thirds of people surveyed said they could read a map.....leaving you to wonder about the remaining one-third.
Just above one-third knew how to check the oil level in their car.....leaving you to wonder about the other two-thirds, and if they ever checked their oil.
I got to near the end of the actual report (something you can read in 30 minutes) and there's this interesting thing about do-it-yourself skills, and where people picked these skills up. Fifty percent admitted that it was trial and error situations where they attempted to do something and learned from the mistakes. Only 12-percent said they got this skill from TV, and 20-percent said it was via YouTube videos.
I have this opinion that along the last year or two of your grade school experience.....there ought to be a mandatory two-hours per day dedicated to oddball skills which aren't really things you'd normally pick up....like: map-reading, investing, understanding loans, rewiring a plug, replacing a florescent light bulb, changing tires, changing oil, or painting.
In some ways, if you read through this Brit research project, you kinda wonder about the knowledge level of just normal regular people. If you introduced the BREXIT deal to them....could the group make a wise decision on voting (for or against)? Could the same group grasp how to use their vote and put the right people into leadership positions?
In the end, Aviva leaves you with some distrust of society....that we might not be capable of handling the majority of things in our lives.
Today, I was reading a piece that the British insurance company Aviva wrote up. They put some guys up on a study of household functions and surveyed 2000-odd people.
Roughly 20-percent of people don't know how to change a bulb. Roughly one-third of people admitted they couldn't cook a true dinner from scratch. 37-percent said they were sure about being able to change a tire, while the rest were either unsure or definitely not able to change a tire.
Roughly two-thirds of people surveyed said they could read a map.....leaving you to wonder about the remaining one-third.
Just above one-third knew how to check the oil level in their car.....leaving you to wonder about the other two-thirds, and if they ever checked their oil.
I got to near the end of the actual report (something you can read in 30 minutes) and there's this interesting thing about do-it-yourself skills, and where people picked these skills up. Fifty percent admitted that it was trial and error situations where they attempted to do something and learned from the mistakes. Only 12-percent said they got this skill from TV, and 20-percent said it was via YouTube videos.
I have this opinion that along the last year or two of your grade school experience.....there ought to be a mandatory two-hours per day dedicated to oddball skills which aren't really things you'd normally pick up....like: map-reading, investing, understanding loans, rewiring a plug, replacing a florescent light bulb, changing tires, changing oil, or painting.
In some ways, if you read through this Brit research project, you kinda wonder about the knowledge level of just normal regular people. If you introduced the BREXIT deal to them....could the group make a wise decision on voting (for or against)? Could the same group grasp how to use their vote and put the right people into leadership positions?
In the end, Aviva leaves you with some distrust of society....that we might not be capable of handling the majority of things in our lives.
The "Concentration Camp" Statement
Somewhere yesterday, with the Pope officiating in some ceremony....he harped up on that a number of Europe's refugee centers are simply "concentration camps". Yeah, he actually used the phrase itself.
I sat and pondered over the statement.
First, it doesn't matter where you go as an immigrant, migrant or asylum seeker.....you end up as the 'guest' of such-and-such country. Being a guest doesn't really mean much. In some countries, it simply means bland food for your daily needs, a heated shelter, and running water. If you wound up in Germany....you'd get more than most countries would dish out, but it's not exactly a hotel operation.
The thing is that there's a fair increase in immigrant traffic, and it's not not exactly an emergency or war-time situation for a fair number of folks. I would take a guess that well over sixty-percent of the 'guests' being handled by most European countries.....are really migrants in search of a better economic condition or improved job. The folks from Syria and Iraq can talk about ISIS and war, and they deserve some type of safe environment until the war is settled.
If there had been some doorway and control over the economic migrants? The refugee centers would have been limited in size and scope....with likely a better atmosphere resulting. But no one wanted to stand at the doorway and limit entry.
What the Pope doesn't say in his statement....is that once you get past the refugee center....with a visa and government support....then you come to look for an apartment in some urbanized area and a job. Then you discover the next reality beyond the refugee center, over-priced marginalized apartments, and jobs which mostly only pay the basic wage.
A fair number of people have taken the 'concentration camp' statement by the Pope and dumped on it. In their mind, it is an unfair statement because these were created mostly at the last-minute, with minimum planning, and not intended to be long-lasting operations. The general negativity about the camps is that it's a densely populated type situation and lots of people with different views on life are occupying space in the camp....some can live with other folks, and some can't. Toss in frustrations, stress, bored days, religious preferences, and arguments that break out daily about mundane things.....and you got a mess to control.
The topic of the Pope's statement will be around for another day or two, and then likely be forgotten.
I sat and pondered over the statement.
First, it doesn't matter where you go as an immigrant, migrant or asylum seeker.....you end up as the 'guest' of such-and-such country. Being a guest doesn't really mean much. In some countries, it simply means bland food for your daily needs, a heated shelter, and running water. If you wound up in Germany....you'd get more than most countries would dish out, but it's not exactly a hotel operation.
The thing is that there's a fair increase in immigrant traffic, and it's not not exactly an emergency or war-time situation for a fair number of folks. I would take a guess that well over sixty-percent of the 'guests' being handled by most European countries.....are really migrants in search of a better economic condition or improved job. The folks from Syria and Iraq can talk about ISIS and war, and they deserve some type of safe environment until the war is settled.
If there had been some doorway and control over the economic migrants? The refugee centers would have been limited in size and scope....with likely a better atmosphere resulting. But no one wanted to stand at the doorway and limit entry.
What the Pope doesn't say in his statement....is that once you get past the refugee center....with a visa and government support....then you come to look for an apartment in some urbanized area and a job. Then you discover the next reality beyond the refugee center, over-priced marginalized apartments, and jobs which mostly only pay the basic wage.
A fair number of people have taken the 'concentration camp' statement by the Pope and dumped on it. In their mind, it is an unfair statement because these were created mostly at the last-minute, with minimum planning, and not intended to be long-lasting operations. The general negativity about the camps is that it's a densely populated type situation and lots of people with different views on life are occupying space in the camp....some can live with other folks, and some can't. Toss in frustrations, stress, bored days, religious preferences, and arguments that break out daily about mundane things.....and you got a mess to control.
The topic of the Pope's statement will be around for another day or two, and then likely be forgotten.
Saturday, April 22, 2017
The Alcoholic Story
This week, in the Frankfurt area, a case wrapped up in court. The basic description of the episode is that "Joe", an asylum-seeker, lived in a immigration center in the Frankfurt region. "Joe" returns back one evening to the center.....goes into tirade....tears up the place....causes a fair amount of damage, and cops come to arrest "Joe". I should note that the same cops looked at "Joe's" room in the center and found some inappropriate things (I'll get to this detail later).
So the German judge had the whole thing explained to him. You see...."Joe" has a alcohol problem, and was fairly drunk when he did all this tirade business and damage.
Maybe "Joe's" attorney thought this would all help to explain things and settle the episode.
The judge finally says 'enough', and says that "Joe" needs to go to the German version of Alcoholics Anonymous. "Joe" basically says that he didn't think that would work, and he didn't really care that much for treatment.
The judge then said.....you can do it the easy way, or we can put you into a full-scale in-patient situation and you don't come out for a number of weeks.
I sat there pondering over this. "Joe" isn't a German, and I'd take a guess that "Joe's" German language ability on a scale of one to ten....is at best a three (my humble guess). These Alcoholic Anonymous meetings tend to get chatty and wordy. You can imagine "Joe" just sitting there in a group of twelve Germans, and mostly getting ten-percent of the whole discussion.
The judge will ask for an evaluation in a couple of months, and the AA-chief will respond that "Joe" attended but no one thinks that he got much out of the episode....because "Joe" doesn't speak that much German. What the judge does next is anyone's guess.
So, we turn to the inappropriate stuff in "Joe's" room. It's all right-wing extreme stuff....stickers, music, etc. I should note, "Joe" is from a society which would be typically the target of right-wing extremism. So the cops asked "Joe" about this. All "Joe" could say was that he used the stuff to jab psychologically at other residents of the immigration center.
I came to the end of the story and had this odd question....which the cops and judge apparently didn't want to ask. For the amount of alcohol that "Joe" was consuming daily (he appeared to me to be a daily binge drinker)....."Joe" needed cash. The immigration folks aren't paying much on pocket money per month. To be a heavy drinker like "Joe" is talking about.....daily.....then in an average month, you'd need at least 150 to 250 Euro....even for the cheap stuff. Where exactly is "Joe" getting the money?
Germany has this one odd feature about life, which most 'new' residents aren't that familiar with.....everywhere you look, there's alcohol. Beer, wine, cognac, fruit-beer, ale, Gin, Ouzo, vodka, whiskey, Tequila, etc.
I can remember arriving in Frankfurt in 1978, and coming to grasp that there are literally thousands of various choices of alcohol to consume. Unless you sat down and really used some common sense, you'd easily end up like "Joe".
Maybe "Joe" will get some benefit out of the AA meetings and curtail his drinking habits.....but I kinda doubt it.
So the German judge had the whole thing explained to him. You see...."Joe" has a alcohol problem, and was fairly drunk when he did all this tirade business and damage.
Maybe "Joe's" attorney thought this would all help to explain things and settle the episode.
The judge finally says 'enough', and says that "Joe" needs to go to the German version of Alcoholics Anonymous. "Joe" basically says that he didn't think that would work, and he didn't really care that much for treatment.
The judge then said.....you can do it the easy way, or we can put you into a full-scale in-patient situation and you don't come out for a number of weeks.
I sat there pondering over this. "Joe" isn't a German, and I'd take a guess that "Joe's" German language ability on a scale of one to ten....is at best a three (my humble guess). These Alcoholic Anonymous meetings tend to get chatty and wordy. You can imagine "Joe" just sitting there in a group of twelve Germans, and mostly getting ten-percent of the whole discussion.
The judge will ask for an evaluation in a couple of months, and the AA-chief will respond that "Joe" attended but no one thinks that he got much out of the episode....because "Joe" doesn't speak that much German. What the judge does next is anyone's guess.
So, we turn to the inappropriate stuff in "Joe's" room. It's all right-wing extreme stuff....stickers, music, etc. I should note, "Joe" is from a society which would be typically the target of right-wing extremism. So the cops asked "Joe" about this. All "Joe" could say was that he used the stuff to jab psychologically at other residents of the immigration center.
I came to the end of the story and had this odd question....which the cops and judge apparently didn't want to ask. For the amount of alcohol that "Joe" was consuming daily (he appeared to me to be a daily binge drinker)....."Joe" needed cash. The immigration folks aren't paying much on pocket money per month. To be a heavy drinker like "Joe" is talking about.....daily.....then in an average month, you'd need at least 150 to 250 Euro....even for the cheap stuff. Where exactly is "Joe" getting the money?
Germany has this one odd feature about life, which most 'new' residents aren't that familiar with.....everywhere you look, there's alcohol. Beer, wine, cognac, fruit-beer, ale, Gin, Ouzo, vodka, whiskey, Tequila, etc.
I can remember arriving in Frankfurt in 1978, and coming to grasp that there are literally thousands of various choices of alcohol to consume. Unless you sat down and really used some common sense, you'd easily end up like "Joe".
Maybe "Joe" will get some benefit out of the AA meetings and curtail his drinking habits.....but I kinda doubt it.
Friday, April 21, 2017
The One-Euro Job Story
Around nine months ago....the German Labor Ministry hustled out this bold new program which was to jump-start jobs for migrants/immigrants. Throughout the summer of 2016, there was this new reality about all these new people in Germany....now having visas, but no occupation or job.
The Frankenstein-like creation to fix this? It was a program to introduce one-Euro jobs (you hire a guy, paying him a Euro an hour, and the government would make up the welfare-payment to cover the rest of his needs). There would be enough money to create 100,000 jobs. All of this....aimed at getting people hired, and then onto regular wage jobs eventually.
So ARD covered this story on Thursday of this past week.
In simple terms....it was a failure. It was bureaucratic in nature.....with paperwork attached. Added to the issue was integration costs....which adds up into the billions and wasn't fully understood by the federal government.
A fix to the fix? Well....no one wrote that into the article, and you simply sit there and wonder how one might fix this.
A lot of intellectual types, politicians, and journalists hyped up the job sector back in 2014 and 2015, and how they'd need all these people to fit into jobs....so immigration made sense. The issue though is that you need people with basic skills and certifications. You probably could have found a fair number of unemployed Greeks and Spaniards, with the skills and university degrees to fit into this job atmosphere.....with some language training. The bulk of these migrants simply didn't fit the profile.
What happens next? For the remainder of 2017, I suspect nothing. The election will keep most people occupied and the migrant population in search of jobs will become more frustrated that it's basically a burger-flipper career or return back to the homeland. A few folks with skills or crafts in their background will get lucky, but I would take a guess that at least 50-percent are disenchanted about this whole Germany deal.
The Frankenstein-like creation to fix this? It was a program to introduce one-Euro jobs (you hire a guy, paying him a Euro an hour, and the government would make up the welfare-payment to cover the rest of his needs). There would be enough money to create 100,000 jobs. All of this....aimed at getting people hired, and then onto regular wage jobs eventually.
So ARD covered this story on Thursday of this past week.
In simple terms....it was a failure. It was bureaucratic in nature.....with paperwork attached. Added to the issue was integration costs....which adds up into the billions and wasn't fully understood by the federal government.
A fix to the fix? Well....no one wrote that into the article, and you simply sit there and wonder how one might fix this.
A lot of intellectual types, politicians, and journalists hyped up the job sector back in 2014 and 2015, and how they'd need all these people to fit into jobs....so immigration made sense. The issue though is that you need people with basic skills and certifications. You probably could have found a fair number of unemployed Greeks and Spaniards, with the skills and university degrees to fit into this job atmosphere.....with some language training. The bulk of these migrants simply didn't fit the profile.
What happens next? For the remainder of 2017, I suspect nothing. The election will keep most people occupied and the migrant population in search of jobs will become more frustrated that it's basically a burger-flipper career or return back to the homeland. A few folks with skills or crafts in their background will get lucky, but I would take a guess that at least 50-percent are disenchanted about this whole Germany deal.
Live NFL Draft On German TV?
In roughly seven days, ProSieben MAXX (a German commercial TV network) will run the 2017 NFL draft live.
It is a sign of the times....that the NFL does now have a fair number of German fans, and they are starting to care about the draft, the Cleveland Browns, the Cowboys, and even the Falcons.
How many Germans are into NFL football? Unknown. Nobody collects statistics like that. If you were to ask me....I'd say it's less than 300,000 out of 82-million Germans. Maybe I'm wrong and it's up in the one to two million range, but I would seriously doubt it.
I think what the TV networks figured out is that on Sunday evenings...from 6PM to midnight....there's just not that much on TV which interests guys of the 18 to 45 age group. You have a couple of movies, five or six documentary shows (mostly on wild animals, people hiking, and food topics), a cooking show, and a murder-krimmi show. That's it. The NFL game offerings? It attracted German guys.
Enough to run the NFL draft show? It's more or less a shocker, I will admit.
The thing you have to wonder about, will this grow over the next decade? Could you have two million NFL fans in Germany? Could you have 40,000 hard-core Raider fans? Could you have 1,000 Germans flying on Friday night over to the US and attend a game in Vegas on Sunday?
It is a sign of the times....that the NFL does now have a fair number of German fans, and they are starting to care about the draft, the Cleveland Browns, the Cowboys, and even the Falcons.
How many Germans are into NFL football? Unknown. Nobody collects statistics like that. If you were to ask me....I'd say it's less than 300,000 out of 82-million Germans. Maybe I'm wrong and it's up in the one to two million range, but I would seriously doubt it.
I think what the TV networks figured out is that on Sunday evenings...from 6PM to midnight....there's just not that much on TV which interests guys of the 18 to 45 age group. You have a couple of movies, five or six documentary shows (mostly on wild animals, people hiking, and food topics), a cooking show, and a murder-krimmi show. That's it. The NFL game offerings? It attracted German guys.
Enough to run the NFL draft show? It's more or less a shocker, I will admit.
The thing you have to wonder about, will this grow over the next decade? Could you have two million NFL fans in Germany? Could you have 40,000 hard-core Raider fans? Could you have 1,000 Germans flying on Friday night over to the US and attend a game in Vegas on Sunday?
Conclusion of the BVB Bomb Investigation
The BVB bus bomb attack was about ten days ago, and cops mulled around looking at suspects. At the forefront were the ISIS folks, and the right-wing extremists. An Iraqi guy was arrested, but there are pieces of the bombing which simply didn't fit with the guy. So the cops continued on.
This morning, the story is finally coming together but it's a fairly odd and different story.
First, while it's not something that most Germans would know.....but the team here....BVB (Borusssia Dortmund Gmbh) is actually a company, and listed on the German stock exchange.
Stock value back on the first of April? Near 5.80 Euro a share. It's not exactly a hot stock or one that you'd typically go out and buy. Back in 2014, it would have peaked near 3.80 Euro a share.
So, we move onto the suspect....a Russian guy who has some kind of past with money-laundering. We aren't saying it's pure Russian mafia stuff, but this guy handles cash which isn't generally seen within the banking sector and likely doesn't pay German taxes.
So, "Ivan" (my name for the guy).....had this grand idea. He would go out and get a 'put' option on the stock market that the stock would fall from it's general position (5.80 at the beginning of the month), and go down. We don't know the amount that he suggested on the stock call....but he had around 15,000 Euro bet on this stock decreasing. I can only speculate, but I'd take a guess that his take if it went below 5.30.....was around 100,000 Euro minimum. Maybe even 150,000 Euro.
It was easy money....if the stock went down.
Then you come to an interesting part of the bomb itself.....it was made of components that a normal guy would not normally come across.....military-related pieces. One can only speculate but he probably got it from some connection back in Russia.
As part of the story....he made a big deal out of getting a room in the same hotel as the team was staying, and it had to be on the front of the building. I would speculate here that the front desk people remember him in particular and his emphasis about the necessity of the room on the front side of the hotel.
The 'put' on the stock deal? If he did it via a laptop at the hotel.....there's going to be some IP address registering the location, and it'll just finger things directly back to him.
This morning, down in in Tubingen.....cops arrested "Ivan".
If you add up the charges....attempted murder of at least forty people on the bus, manufacture of an explosive device, and bodily harm to a number of people.....I'd take a fair guess that he's looking at life in prison.
So you come to the end of this story. There are two things of a worrying nature.
First, this idiot did all of this....even possibly killing a couple of players....in the interest of stock manipulation. The cops won't forget about how this occurred, and it'll make them suspicious of future acts and if they were manipulation efforts.
Second, for the common working-class German....you had to worry about ISIS thugs, right-wing extremists, neo-Nazis, and just plain crazy nuts. Now, in your list of things to worry about.....stock manipulators and Russian mafia players?
Stock price of BVB today? Roughly 5.40 Euro.
UPDATE: Cops say now that the guy had 79,000 Euro on the 'put', and if things had gone his way....he would have made almost four million Euro off the stock investment 'bet'. A heck of a investment deal....now maybe life in prison.
This morning, the story is finally coming together but it's a fairly odd and different story.
First, while it's not something that most Germans would know.....but the team here....BVB (Borusssia Dortmund Gmbh) is actually a company, and listed on the German stock exchange.
Stock value back on the first of April? Near 5.80 Euro a share. It's not exactly a hot stock or one that you'd typically go out and buy. Back in 2014, it would have peaked near 3.80 Euro a share.
So, we move onto the suspect....a Russian guy who has some kind of past with money-laundering. We aren't saying it's pure Russian mafia stuff, but this guy handles cash which isn't generally seen within the banking sector and likely doesn't pay German taxes.
So, "Ivan" (my name for the guy).....had this grand idea. He would go out and get a 'put' option on the stock market that the stock would fall from it's general position (5.80 at the beginning of the month), and go down. We don't know the amount that he suggested on the stock call....but he had around 15,000 Euro bet on this stock decreasing. I can only speculate, but I'd take a guess that his take if it went below 5.30.....was around 100,000 Euro minimum. Maybe even 150,000 Euro.
It was easy money....if the stock went down.
Then you come to an interesting part of the bomb itself.....it was made of components that a normal guy would not normally come across.....military-related pieces. One can only speculate but he probably got it from some connection back in Russia.
As part of the story....he made a big deal out of getting a room in the same hotel as the team was staying, and it had to be on the front of the building. I would speculate here that the front desk people remember him in particular and his emphasis about the necessity of the room on the front side of the hotel.
The 'put' on the stock deal? If he did it via a laptop at the hotel.....there's going to be some IP address registering the location, and it'll just finger things directly back to him.
This morning, down in in Tubingen.....cops arrested "Ivan".
If you add up the charges....attempted murder of at least forty people on the bus, manufacture of an explosive device, and bodily harm to a number of people.....I'd take a fair guess that he's looking at life in prison.
So you come to the end of this story. There are two things of a worrying nature.
First, this idiot did all of this....even possibly killing a couple of players....in the interest of stock manipulation. The cops won't forget about how this occurred, and it'll make them suspicious of future acts and if they were manipulation efforts.
Second, for the common working-class German....you had to worry about ISIS thugs, right-wing extremists, neo-Nazis, and just plain crazy nuts. Now, in your list of things to worry about.....stock manipulators and Russian mafia players?
Stock price of BVB today? Roughly 5.40 Euro.
UPDATE: Cops say now that the guy had 79,000 Euro on the 'put', and if things had gone his way....he would have made almost four million Euro off the stock investment 'bet'. A heck of a investment deal....now maybe life in prison.
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Landscape for AfD Changing
If you follow German political news.....yesterday had an unusual piece. The chief of the AfD Party in Germany basically said that she was stepping back, and a new person ought to be at the forefront of the party. Frauke Petry has been around for roughly two years and done a fairly decent job with a start-up political party. She's pregnant and due in about three months. I don't think she had the energy level required for the job and this political period leading up to the September election.
A political fight over the job? There's probably three or four individuals with name recognition and will be voted to the job from within the party mechanism.
The thing is....if you follow polls....AfD has hit some peak, and in recent months been on a slight slide. Presently (as of this week) AfD is said to be nationally at around 8-percent of the vote. In some states....they are still in the 15-to-18 percent range. There's no doubt that they will have a minimum of five-percent in the September election, and be part of the future Bundestag. But the idea that they might have taken 20-percent in a national election? Gone.
What caused the slide back? Two chief items....a one-topic party, and the lessening of immigrants coming into Germany. At the present pace of things, immigration for 2017 will be somewhere around 300,000 to 350,000 by the end of this year. It's fairly close to the 2012 'normal' flow of 250,000. The public believes that the Merkel-EU plan....paying three billion Euro a year to Turkey has lessen the flow. As long as they believe that....then political frustrations are lessened.
A political fight over the job? There's probably three or four individuals with name recognition and will be voted to the job from within the party mechanism.
The thing is....if you follow polls....AfD has hit some peak, and in recent months been on a slight slide. Presently (as of this week) AfD is said to be nationally at around 8-percent of the vote. In some states....they are still in the 15-to-18 percent range. There's no doubt that they will have a minimum of five-percent in the September election, and be part of the future Bundestag. But the idea that they might have taken 20-percent in a national election? Gone.
What caused the slide back? Two chief items....a one-topic party, and the lessening of immigrants coming into Germany. At the present pace of things, immigration for 2017 will be somewhere around 300,000 to 350,000 by the end of this year. It's fairly close to the 2012 'normal' flow of 250,000. The public believes that the Merkel-EU plan....paying three billion Euro a year to Turkey has lessen the flow. As long as they believe that....then political frustrations are lessened.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Steak Wine?
So this week, I noticed this wine advertisement....well...steak wine. Some wine chain contracted out to two wine organizations and 'labeled' their wares for steak wine. 3.49 Euro a bottle (roughly $3.75).
To be honest....I'm a bit of a steak eater but I never really thought much over the drink to have with it. Typically, it'd be ice tea.....a Pepsi.....or a beer. Wine with steak? No.
I suspect that a quarter of folks looking through this brochure will stop and eventually 'X' the wine area and buy a bottle or two. The thing is....it's simply cheap dry wine. You could use it with chicken, pork steaks, bacon, or waffles.
Starting a new trend for steak folks? Maybe. Who knows....maybe even the A-1 sauce people will make up a new sauce with red wine included.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
The Six-Way Situation
If you follow the French election business....we are just five days away from the top two winners going to the next round. Folks are mostly looking at six possibilities:
Le Pen versus Macron
Le Pen versus Fillon
Le Pen versus Melenchon
Macron versus Fillon
Macron versus Melenchon
Fillon versus Melenchon
Roughly one-third of all French voters are indicating that they might just stay home....which means that traditional polls aren't really prepared for this six-way combo.
If you had only Melenchon (the communist guy) versus Le Pen (the far right candidate)....you could imagine thirty to forty percent of society staying home.
If you had Fillon (under investigation for fake pay over his wife) and Macron (the 'empty suit' guy with a seven-line resume)....you could imagine forty percent of society staying home.
If you had Le Pen versus Fillon....a bunch of non-right wing folks would likely stay home, with a large segment of French civil service employees voting for Le Pen because Fillon says he'll terminate their jobs.
Macron and Melenchon? A bunch of right-wing or conservative folks would just stay home.
Screwed up? This really explains why one-third of the public is talking about having NOT made up their mind on this election with only five days left.
Le Pen versus Macron
Le Pen versus Fillon
Le Pen versus Melenchon
Macron versus Fillon
Macron versus Melenchon
Fillon versus Melenchon
Roughly one-third of all French voters are indicating that they might just stay home....which means that traditional polls aren't really prepared for this six-way combo.
If you had only Melenchon (the communist guy) versus Le Pen (the far right candidate)....you could imagine thirty to forty percent of society staying home.
If you had Fillon (under investigation for fake pay over his wife) and Macron (the 'empty suit' guy with a seven-line resume)....you could imagine forty percent of society staying home.
If you had Le Pen versus Fillon....a bunch of non-right wing folks would likely stay home, with a large segment of French civil service employees voting for Le Pen because Fillon says he'll terminate their jobs.
Macron and Melenchon? A bunch of right-wing or conservative folks would just stay home.
Screwed up? This really explains why one-third of the public is talking about having NOT made up their mind on this election with only five days left.
Friday, April 14, 2017
Where Did the New Berlin Airport Idea Come From?
About every six to eight weeks, there's some new story on BER (the new Berlin Airport, which has yet to open, now about 5 years past the opening date). Most Germans laugh about the construction woes. Tax revenue flows into the project and it's a negative story for the Brandenburg and Berlin governments to chat about.
How did the new airport idea start?
Shortly after the wall came down, the topic of the three regional airports in Berlin came up. Templehof desperately needed to be closed, and both Tegal/Schonefeld were aging. The leadership of Berlin looked at the future and determined that the only way forward was to build one single massive airport to serve both Berlin and Brandenburg.
So, they went through phases. The first was to find a big enough open area to place this airport. Roughly 25 km SE of the heart of Berlin was a fairly open area, with some housing. A massive land purchase went into effect. People who'd lived in the area for years.....were told to sell, period. Roughly 300 residents fell into this category.
The company that was put together? The Brandenburg government owns 37-percent, as does Berlin city government. The German federal government owns 26-percent.
A bidding phase occurred where private companies were invited in, and they were supposed to supervise the construction and run the project. Two companies were active in the bidding.....Hochtief won. As you might expect, the opposing company went to court (IVG). Six months after the bid occurred with a winner....the court threw out that bid. It was a sign of problems to come.
In the new bid process....oddly enough, IVG and Hochtief come together and put a new joint bid. Since it's the only bid, you'd think that this would be a winner. Well....NO. The city reviewed the single bid and said no.....private construction and operation was not possible. Little has ever been said about this process and why the joint bid failed. One might assume that the cost aspect of the contract bid was fairly high.
So, the public company went forward on it's own.
Court battles then started up. The folks from that particular region of construction sued. The court threw out their case eventually. Then complaints arose over the use of the other airports.....with the hard position by the government to shut down Tegal and Schonefeld once BER was active.
The original cost? 2.8 billion Euro.
Six years into construction? Just over 4 billion Euro.
Presently, the cost is rated at 6.9 billion Euro (2016 numbers). My humble guess is that it'll eventually arrive at operational status at between 7 and 8 billion.
It should be noted that the closure status of Tegel and Schonefeld are no longer concrete. Schonefeld is virtually guaranteed to stay open now (too much in traffic expectations), and there are rumors that Tegal might get a second life as well.
A major screw-up? I think the moment that the joint IVG/Hochtief bid was turned down....things were heading south. This public company situation simply didn't have the control or knowledge necessary for the project.
Presently, folks are hopeful on a 2018 opening date.
How did the new airport idea start?
Shortly after the wall came down, the topic of the three regional airports in Berlin came up. Templehof desperately needed to be closed, and both Tegal/Schonefeld were aging. The leadership of Berlin looked at the future and determined that the only way forward was to build one single massive airport to serve both Berlin and Brandenburg.
So, they went through phases. The first was to find a big enough open area to place this airport. Roughly 25 km SE of the heart of Berlin was a fairly open area, with some housing. A massive land purchase went into effect. People who'd lived in the area for years.....were told to sell, period. Roughly 300 residents fell into this category.
The company that was put together? The Brandenburg government owns 37-percent, as does Berlin city government. The German federal government owns 26-percent.
A bidding phase occurred where private companies were invited in, and they were supposed to supervise the construction and run the project. Two companies were active in the bidding.....Hochtief won. As you might expect, the opposing company went to court (IVG). Six months after the bid occurred with a winner....the court threw out that bid. It was a sign of problems to come.
In the new bid process....oddly enough, IVG and Hochtief come together and put a new joint bid. Since it's the only bid, you'd think that this would be a winner. Well....NO. The city reviewed the single bid and said no.....private construction and operation was not possible. Little has ever been said about this process and why the joint bid failed. One might assume that the cost aspect of the contract bid was fairly high.
So, the public company went forward on it's own.
Court battles then started up. The folks from that particular region of construction sued. The court threw out their case eventually. Then complaints arose over the use of the other airports.....with the hard position by the government to shut down Tegal and Schonefeld once BER was active.
The original cost? 2.8 billion Euro.
Six years into construction? Just over 4 billion Euro.
Presently, the cost is rated at 6.9 billion Euro (2016 numbers). My humble guess is that it'll eventually arrive at operational status at between 7 and 8 billion.
It should be noted that the closure status of Tegel and Schonefeld are no longer concrete. Schonefeld is virtually guaranteed to stay open now (too much in traffic expectations), and there are rumors that Tegal might get a second life as well.
A major screw-up? I think the moment that the joint IVG/Hochtief bid was turned down....things were heading south. This public company situation simply didn't have the control or knowledge necessary for the project.
Presently, folks are hopeful on a 2018 opening date.
A Scent of Munich and 1980
In the fall of 1980....there was to be a German federal election....5 Oct 1980.
Around ten days prior to the election, a simple pipe-bomb went off at the Munich Oktoberfest. Thirteen people dead, and 211 injured.
The culprit? There was a fairly quick rush to judgement that a right-wing extremist and geologist student....Gundolf Kohler....was the one single guy who built the bomb and accidentally set it off while placing it....thus dying among the thirteen.
The cops were put under intense pressure to solve this and wrap it up....prior to the election. Kohler had a record....he was considered a gun-nut....and he was a loner. If you were looking for a perfect candidate for the bomb-maker....this guy was it.
It was a tidy clean-up and helped to ensure a stable view of society.....for the election.
The only problem? Well....at the scene were dead people and wounded folks.....along with this one hand (separated from the body). The cops assumed the mangled hand belonged to Kohler. Oddly, when they did fingerprint reviews from this hand and the car that Kohler drove to the fest....the prints aren't on the car. But the prints do show up in his apartment. This should have driven the cops to ask a lot more questions. The leadership of the state didn't want more questions....they just wanted closure.
It is this odd aspect of a case closed. Most German cops from this episode didn't like the speed involved or the quick closing of the case. The fact that Kohler was noted as the one and only person involved in this? As time went by....fewer and fewer believed the story told by the original government report.
So I come to this week's BVB bombing (Tuesday night) and how this Iraqi guy was quickly identified and the case is pursued on him. So far, there's a fair number of cops who seem to question how this fits together.
Oh, they agree....he has some attachment to ISIS and the arrest for that connection is legit. But the bomb attempt on the soccer team bus? There is no clear connection.
We are four weeks away from the NRW state election. There's this impression that the leadership in the state are acting a bit like it was 1980 and Munich. They need the bombing episode to be cleaned up quickly and a culprit to be identified. The Iraqi guy has some connection to ISIS, so fine. But was he the bomber? There's just not any real evidence yet.
Around ten days prior to the election, a simple pipe-bomb went off at the Munich Oktoberfest. Thirteen people dead, and 211 injured.
The culprit? There was a fairly quick rush to judgement that a right-wing extremist and geologist student....Gundolf Kohler....was the one single guy who built the bomb and accidentally set it off while placing it....thus dying among the thirteen.
The cops were put under intense pressure to solve this and wrap it up....prior to the election. Kohler had a record....he was considered a gun-nut....and he was a loner. If you were looking for a perfect candidate for the bomb-maker....this guy was it.
It was a tidy clean-up and helped to ensure a stable view of society.....for the election.
The only problem? Well....at the scene were dead people and wounded folks.....along with this one hand (separated from the body). The cops assumed the mangled hand belonged to Kohler. Oddly, when they did fingerprint reviews from this hand and the car that Kohler drove to the fest....the prints aren't on the car. But the prints do show up in his apartment. This should have driven the cops to ask a lot more questions. The leadership of the state didn't want more questions....they just wanted closure.
It is this odd aspect of a case closed. Most German cops from this episode didn't like the speed involved or the quick closing of the case. The fact that Kohler was noted as the one and only person involved in this? As time went by....fewer and fewer believed the story told by the original government report.
So I come to this week's BVB bombing (Tuesday night) and how this Iraqi guy was quickly identified and the case is pursued on him. So far, there's a fair number of cops who seem to question how this fits together.
Oh, they agree....he has some attachment to ISIS and the arrest for that connection is legit. But the bomb attempt on the soccer team bus? There is no clear connection.
We are four weeks away from the NRW state election. There's this impression that the leadership in the state are acting a bit like it was 1980 and Munich. They need the bombing episode to be cleaned up quickly and a culprit to be identified. The Iraqi guy has some connection to ISIS, so fine. But was he the bomber? There's just not any real evidence yet.
This Virus Topic
Years ago (1970s), there was a health issue along the Hanta River of South Korea. Researchers would eventually determine that it was a virus that got passed along mostly because of mice. Between their feces and urine.....it would get passed along to humans. So was created the Hantavirus.
This got into the German news in the past week....out of Stuttgart. In 2016, they had 84 cases of Hantavirus in the Stuttgart area. Right now....they've exceeded 108 cases so far in four months of 2017.
Chief symptoms? Fever, headaches, back pain, blood pressure dropping, and flu-like feeling. The big problem here is that if you don't get this identified early on.....you reach a stage where kidney failure starts to happen, and it's down hill from that point on.
How it got to be a problem? What the scientists generally say is that urbanization has created a rich environment where homes are built on the edges of towns.....near forested areas, and more contact with the environment starts to occur (to include mice). So you put up a bar-b-q pit and some mouse lays out his saliva or urine, and you happen to get into the midst of this.
Interestingly enough.....it's a virus which isn't passed from human to human (at least not yet)....you need the mouse to be the carrier.
Treatment? Well....there is no vaccine. Lots of research but no development yet of a vaccine for this. After the doctor identifies you with the virus.....you have several treatments but there is no sure-fire way of dealing with this. Most treatments are geared to improve your immune system, and let it fight off the virus.
When you stand back and look at this.....you can imagine yourself in the 1600s and having to deal with the plague (mice-driven), and a public health system which wasn't able to really deal with the problem. It's not as bad as the plague situation, but it invites more questions over your health and your relationship with the local environment.
This got into the German news in the past week....out of Stuttgart. In 2016, they had 84 cases of Hantavirus in the Stuttgart area. Right now....they've exceeded 108 cases so far in four months of 2017.
Chief symptoms? Fever, headaches, back pain, blood pressure dropping, and flu-like feeling. The big problem here is that if you don't get this identified early on.....you reach a stage where kidney failure starts to happen, and it's down hill from that point on.
How it got to be a problem? What the scientists generally say is that urbanization has created a rich environment where homes are built on the edges of towns.....near forested areas, and more contact with the environment starts to occur (to include mice). So you put up a bar-b-q pit and some mouse lays out his saliva or urine, and you happen to get into the midst of this.
Interestingly enough.....it's a virus which isn't passed from human to human (at least not yet)....you need the mouse to be the carrier.
Treatment? Well....there is no vaccine. Lots of research but no development yet of a vaccine for this. After the doctor identifies you with the virus.....you have several treatments but there is no sure-fire way of dealing with this. Most treatments are geared to improve your immune system, and let it fight off the virus.
When you stand back and look at this.....you can imagine yourself in the 1600s and having to deal with the plague (mice-driven), and a public health system which wasn't able to really deal with the problem. It's not as bad as the plague situation, but it invites more questions over your health and your relationship with the local environment.
Tunisia Recovery?
In 2015, several attacks occurred in Tunisia over a matter of a couple of months. Sixty dead. By the end of 2015, tourism (especially from Germany) had virtually stopped.
If you had to go and pick a country that had the perfect atmosphere.....quiet beaches....and priced right for vacation, Tunisia prior to 2015 was the place. A number of companies had gone in over the past decade and invested millions into resort complexes, golf courses, and holiday spots.
I noticed last night on German TV (ARD).....that some people are talking about a recovery period in 2017 in Tunisia, with tourism.
Two things have basically occurred to change perceptions.
First, Tunisia has hired a fair number of men to be guards or policemen around the beach fronts.
Second, the hotels have created compound-like structures, with enhanced security measures, and private armed security.
Back in 2009/2010.....Tunisia had almost seven million people per year visiting.....which was considered a peak period of the last decade. For 2016, with the downward trend, they'd lost roughly 20-percent of the tourists over the previous year.
For the Germans and Europeans....they really need this tourism in Tunisia to work. It keeps young Tunisians employed and not seeking some migrant status to enter Europe. The question will be....do you really feel safe enough while on vacation?
If you had to go and pick a country that had the perfect atmosphere.....quiet beaches....and priced right for vacation, Tunisia prior to 2015 was the place. A number of companies had gone in over the past decade and invested millions into resort complexes, golf courses, and holiday spots.
I noticed last night on German TV (ARD).....that some people are talking about a recovery period in 2017 in Tunisia, with tourism.
Two things have basically occurred to change perceptions.
First, Tunisia has hired a fair number of men to be guards or policemen around the beach fronts.
Second, the hotels have created compound-like structures, with enhanced security measures, and private armed security.
Back in 2009/2010.....Tunisia had almost seven million people per year visiting.....which was considered a peak period of the last decade. For 2016, with the downward trend, they'd lost roughly 20-percent of the tourists over the previous year.
For the Germans and Europeans....they really need this tourism in Tunisia to work. It keeps young Tunisians employed and not seeking some migrant status to enter Europe. The question will be....do you really feel safe enough while on vacation?
Thursday, April 13, 2017
"Well Prepared" and Cultures
This week, I picked up the story from Iceland from Iceland Review.
A lot of folks show up in Iceland....for some hiking, treking, and adventures. Generally, winter isn't over until the end of April. I emphasize 'generally'.
Around the first of April, this French tourist showed up in Iceland.....Thomas Chretien. He'd made up some plan which involved the western fjord areas, and this was going to mean going through some mountain pass area. It's safe to say....it's not a road that you'd want to travel in the midst of a harsh winter, but this was early April.
Somewhere in the middle of this pass.....the snow got deep, and he just got stuck. No snowplow activity because it was awful deep.
He was more or less in some 20 km stretch on the pass, and no way out.
Now, typically.....when you get to preparing yourself for a trip like this to the back-country.....you'd have a list of things you'd bring along. Different cultures would do it in various ways.
In Chretien's planning....he had everything.....water, lots of food, and the right gear to stay warm. He was French.
An American? Well....sadly, we tend to just throw some crackers into a bag.....two bottles of water.....a Pepsi or two.....some apples, and maybe a flashlight. Things wouldn't have gone well for an American stuck in a mountain pass for five days.
A German? There would have been a case of beer in the back of the vehicle, two or three tubes of Bi-Fi sticks, and big jar of Nutella. Things would have gone well for the first day or two for the German but once the beer ran out....it'd be utter chaos.
An Italian? They would have stopped at the entry to the pass....looked at matters and snow....and just turned around and spent five days in some luxury Icelandic hotel.
Someone needs to sit down and write a 300-page book on cultures and how they would stack up in a well prepared but chaotic situation.
A lot of folks show up in Iceland....for some hiking, treking, and adventures. Generally, winter isn't over until the end of April. I emphasize 'generally'.
Around the first of April, this French tourist showed up in Iceland.....Thomas Chretien. He'd made up some plan which involved the western fjord areas, and this was going to mean going through some mountain pass area. It's safe to say....it's not a road that you'd want to travel in the midst of a harsh winter, but this was early April.
Somewhere in the middle of this pass.....the snow got deep, and he just got stuck. No snowplow activity because it was awful deep.
He was more or less in some 20 km stretch on the pass, and no way out.
Now, typically.....when you get to preparing yourself for a trip like this to the back-country.....you'd have a list of things you'd bring along. Different cultures would do it in various ways.
In Chretien's planning....he had everything.....water, lots of food, and the right gear to stay warm. He was French.
An American? Well....sadly, we tend to just throw some crackers into a bag.....two bottles of water.....a Pepsi or two.....some apples, and maybe a flashlight. Things wouldn't have gone well for an American stuck in a mountain pass for five days.
A German? There would have been a case of beer in the back of the vehicle, two or three tubes of Bi-Fi sticks, and big jar of Nutella. Things would have gone well for the first day or two for the German but once the beer ran out....it'd be utter chaos.
An Italian? They would have stopped at the entry to the pass....looked at matters and snow....and just turned around and spent five days in some luxury Icelandic hotel.
Someone needs to sit down and write a 300-page book on cultures and how they would stack up in a well prepared but chaotic situation.
My Landau Story
Things happen in Germany....which tend to be mostly scripted out. You can generally predict that if situation "A" occurs.....then these other things will unfold.
Occasionally, you will get a pretty unusual situation "A" and then the normal list of things to occur can be thrown out, and you get pretty shocked over outcomes.
This is one of those stories.
Southeast of Kaiserslautern is the small town of Landau (43,000). Typically, it's one of my favorite drives to come out through the woods south of Kaiserslautern on Highway 10. It's a highly landscaped town, and mostly known for wine.
As part of this story.....cops get a call. They need to come out to some guy's house.....he's being threatened.
Cops show up.....two gals out front.
So the story has to be untangled. This guy (living in this house) was single, and all fixed up to marry some gal (from South Tyrol). For those unfamiliar with South Tyrol, it's the very northern tip of Italy, up against the Alps, and borders Austria.
Folks from South Tyrol are a combination of Italian, Tyrolian, Austrian, and generally are fairly business-like. You don't find 'losers' or welfare cases being a trendy thing in South Tyrol.
This German guy and this South Tyrolian gal had everything somewhat planned out, and papers were at the local government office for the license business. Then, as the journalist who had written the story noted.....the German guy had "orientated himself differently".
In Alabama, we'd have another phrase for it, but "orientating yourself differently" works fine with us.
The issue is that the South Tyrol gal had shown up with her sister, and they weren't really on a friendly call with this guy. They wanted to speak up to him and give him a piece of their mind.
Sadly, there are no pictures of the event, the guy, or the gal.
It would be interesting to share a beer with the guy and hear his side of the story. Maybe there are some other bits and pieces to the story, which kinda lead to this 'orientating yourself differently' attitude. Then I'd like to have a beer with the South Tyrol gal, and hear her side of the story. Knowing Germans, and having met a couple of Tyrolian folks....it's possible that you might have some Clint Eastwood-like scenario where two Clints have met up and neither can fully manage the other like you'd expect.
The sad thing over this is that the Landau guy will get himself a reputation.
As for the cops? Well....I'm guessing they might have stood there at the curb of the house.....talking with the gal and her sister, then talking to the guy, asking forty questions, and went back to the Landau police station to write a twenty-page report, and Sarge eventually called them back in to trim this to six lines.
Occasionally, you will get a pretty unusual situation "A" and then the normal list of things to occur can be thrown out, and you get pretty shocked over outcomes.
This is one of those stories.
Southeast of Kaiserslautern is the small town of Landau (43,000). Typically, it's one of my favorite drives to come out through the woods south of Kaiserslautern on Highway 10. It's a highly landscaped town, and mostly known for wine.
As part of this story.....cops get a call. They need to come out to some guy's house.....he's being threatened.
Cops show up.....two gals out front.
So the story has to be untangled. This guy (living in this house) was single, and all fixed up to marry some gal (from South Tyrol). For those unfamiliar with South Tyrol, it's the very northern tip of Italy, up against the Alps, and borders Austria.
Folks from South Tyrol are a combination of Italian, Tyrolian, Austrian, and generally are fairly business-like. You don't find 'losers' or welfare cases being a trendy thing in South Tyrol.
This German guy and this South Tyrolian gal had everything somewhat planned out, and papers were at the local government office for the license business. Then, as the journalist who had written the story noted.....the German guy had "orientated himself differently".
In Alabama, we'd have another phrase for it, but "orientating yourself differently" works fine with us.
The issue is that the South Tyrol gal had shown up with her sister, and they weren't really on a friendly call with this guy. They wanted to speak up to him and give him a piece of their mind.
Sadly, there are no pictures of the event, the guy, or the gal.
It would be interesting to share a beer with the guy and hear his side of the story. Maybe there are some other bits and pieces to the story, which kinda lead to this 'orientating yourself differently' attitude. Then I'd like to have a beer with the South Tyrol gal, and hear her side of the story. Knowing Germans, and having met a couple of Tyrolian folks....it's possible that you might have some Clint Eastwood-like scenario where two Clints have met up and neither can fully manage the other like you'd expect.
The sad thing over this is that the Landau guy will get himself a reputation.
As for the cops? Well....I'm guessing they might have stood there at the curb of the house.....talking with the gal and her sister, then talking to the guy, asking forty questions, and went back to the Landau police station to write a twenty-page report, and Sarge eventually called them back in to trim this to six lines.
Frankfurt
In January of 1978, I arrived in Frankfurt. For me, it was a New York City experience, without the massive scale of NY City. It didn't matter where you went....construction was underway....crowds of people were moving from through the town...and you stood in awe of the whole spectacle. HR built a timelapse piece of Frankfurt, and its worth a two-minute view.
The thing about Frankfurt as compared against NY City....is that the subway and trollycar line works like it should. The Airport has roughly 180,000 people that flow through each day. Roughly a hundred long-distance railway trains will come in or leave each day.
You have bankers and such who live more than an hour away from town, and make the trip in on a quiet railway car.....working off their laptop as they journey in. The Goethea-Frankfurt University has roughly 44,000 students.
I've been through Sydney, Vienna, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Amsterdam, Washington, New York, London, Paris, Rome, and twenty other major metropolitan cities. If I had to pick one single city with all the right features.....Frankfurt is it.
The thing about Frankfurt as compared against NY City....is that the subway and trollycar line works like it should. The Airport has roughly 180,000 people that flow through each day. Roughly a hundred long-distance railway trains will come in or leave each day.
You have bankers and such who live more than an hour away from town, and make the trip in on a quiet railway car.....working off their laptop as they journey in. The Goethea-Frankfurt University has roughly 44,000 students.
I've been through Sydney, Vienna, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Amsterdam, Washington, New York, London, Paris, Rome, and twenty other major metropolitan cities. If I had to pick one single city with all the right features.....Frankfurt is it.
The Borussia Dortmund Explosion
There are four simple facts to this 'attack':
1. A series of three pipe-bomb-like devices are exploded on Tuesday evening as the Dortmund professional soccer team were heading to their stadium for a game. Worst damage to the vehicle was a broken window and a punctured tire.
2. One player cut up on the arm to a fair degree.
3. Evidence and detective work led to the cops to an Iraqi-asylum guy.....who they've arrested. Motive? Yet to be figured out. There's some German associate also arrested (not believed to be Muslim).
4. The attack has led to massive security upgrades not only at the Dortmund stadium but around Germany as well.
Last night, for the 8PM nightly news on ARD (Channel One)......this was the lead-off story and took almost seven minutes of the whole broadcast. Later as the news ended.....then ARD went into a special broadcast for another 15 minutes to tell more of the story.
The issue is....there's basically only six lines of information about the whole thing. You can stretch this as far as you want, but there's just not much to the story.
The cops are searching for a vehicle seen in the local area that had foreign plates on it....but no one can say if the vehicle was involved in the attack or not.
If you wanted a fairly indepth report....I'd suggest the London Telegraph piece.
1. A series of three pipe-bomb-like devices are exploded on Tuesday evening as the Dortmund professional soccer team were heading to their stadium for a game. Worst damage to the vehicle was a broken window and a punctured tire.
2. One player cut up on the arm to a fair degree.
3. Evidence and detective work led to the cops to an Iraqi-asylum guy.....who they've arrested. Motive? Yet to be figured out. There's some German associate also arrested (not believed to be Muslim).
4. The attack has led to massive security upgrades not only at the Dortmund stadium but around Germany as well.
Last night, for the 8PM nightly news on ARD (Channel One)......this was the lead-off story and took almost seven minutes of the whole broadcast. Later as the news ended.....then ARD went into a special broadcast for another 15 minutes to tell more of the story.
The issue is....there's basically only six lines of information about the whole thing. You can stretch this as far as you want, but there's just not much to the story.
The cops are searching for a vehicle seen in the local area that had foreign plates on it....but no one can say if the vehicle was involved in the attack or not.
If you wanted a fairly indepth report....I'd suggest the London Telegraph piece.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Crime, Germany, and the Cops
ZDF (public-TV, Channel Two here in Germany) ran a 43-minute segment last night...."How Much Police Does Germany Need".
It was an interesting piece. Lot of statistics....lot of interviews with experts and cops....talk over the type of crime now on the streets of Germany.
If you bring up crime with a working-class German.....most say that things are out of control, and that there is a major problem existing in Germany.
The thing that this show demonstrated is that there are various layers of problems.
Equipment is outdated. Consequences aren't forthcoming to individuals who break the law. Cops now distrust the public when they arrive at a scene....so they might over-react. Drug-trafficking is now a everyday job. Burglaries are now commonplace and taking up a fair amount of investigative time. Overtime hours across all of Germany for 2016 and the cops? Over 20 million hours. Nothing indicates that will be better in 2017.
It was a fair assessment by the news media. The problem is that you really come down to the end, and you don't see some light at the end of the tunnel.
It would be stupid to sit and try to blame this on the immigrant crowd of 2013 to present. You might be able to show some connection with the Tunisian guys who've become big-time drug dealers in urban areas of Germany.....but that doesn't explain or cover the robbery situation, or the terror acts. You can open up the regional news and note a couple ATM machines blown up every week now in Hessen....with little done in terms of prevention or solving this crime.
The cops being hired? It's a massive number that's being talked about. But by the time you recruit....get them through the police academy....and out in the field....it could be spring of 2019 before you start to see some change in the public perception. To be honest, no one says that the additional 15,000 new cops will be enough. That's generally noticed when you sit and watch these public forums. You could easily get to the spring of 2019 and then there's suddenly talk of another 10,000 cops being hired.
At some point, some idiot in the public will eventually get around to asking....if you bring more cops on and they arrest more....won't you have to hire more prosecutors and judges, and then build more prisons? That will shock the politicians a good bit that you were that smart to figure out the end result of this mess.
What the segment from ZDF does in an election year? It'll force all the political parties to review their stance and how bad the situation is.....and perhaps go another step or two. The public though....hasn't exactly seen anything improving. The segment just confirmed what they already knew.
It was an interesting piece. Lot of statistics....lot of interviews with experts and cops....talk over the type of crime now on the streets of Germany.
If you bring up crime with a working-class German.....most say that things are out of control, and that there is a major problem existing in Germany.
The thing that this show demonstrated is that there are various layers of problems.
Equipment is outdated. Consequences aren't forthcoming to individuals who break the law. Cops now distrust the public when they arrive at a scene....so they might over-react. Drug-trafficking is now a everyday job. Burglaries are now commonplace and taking up a fair amount of investigative time. Overtime hours across all of Germany for 2016 and the cops? Over 20 million hours. Nothing indicates that will be better in 2017.
It was a fair assessment by the news media. The problem is that you really come down to the end, and you don't see some light at the end of the tunnel.
It would be stupid to sit and try to blame this on the immigrant crowd of 2013 to present. You might be able to show some connection with the Tunisian guys who've become big-time drug dealers in urban areas of Germany.....but that doesn't explain or cover the robbery situation, or the terror acts. You can open up the regional news and note a couple ATM machines blown up every week now in Hessen....with little done in terms of prevention or solving this crime.
The cops being hired? It's a massive number that's being talked about. But by the time you recruit....get them through the police academy....and out in the field....it could be spring of 2019 before you start to see some change in the public perception. To be honest, no one says that the additional 15,000 new cops will be enough. That's generally noticed when you sit and watch these public forums. You could easily get to the spring of 2019 and then there's suddenly talk of another 10,000 cops being hired.
At some point, some idiot in the public will eventually get around to asking....if you bring more cops on and they arrest more....won't you have to hire more prosecutors and judges, and then build more prisons? That will shock the politicians a good bit that you were that smart to figure out the end result of this mess.
What the segment from ZDF does in an election year? It'll force all the political parties to review their stance and how bad the situation is.....and perhaps go another step or two. The public though....hasn't exactly seen anything improving. The segment just confirmed what they already knew.
The WW II Gas Story
At the end of the late 1800s, Francis Galton (combination geographer, inventor, meteorologist, statistician, sociologist, anthropologist, and lecturer) sat down and read his cousin's new book. His cousin? Charles Darwin. Yeah, that Charles Darwin who wrote the theory of evolution.
There's a lot of fine details with Galton. He was apparently bright as a kid.....knowing a fair amount of Greek and Latin before he was seven.
After reading Darwin's book....Galton proposed this idea of what would become Eugenics, give eventually birth to the Hadamar facility and its transformation, and lead onto the death of millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis.
The fact that he produced well over 300 books in his life and was widely read in the science and political field....gave his idea on Eugenics a platform to exist.
The basic theme to Eugenics? There were way too many idiots and incompetent people in the world....so you needed to weed these people out. Galton's chief concept was that you'd sterilize and castrate enough people and over a generation or two....you'd fix this problem. We aren't talking about a friendly optional sterilization or castration program.....we are talking about a mandatory function.
In roughly twenty years....as you gazed across the landscape of the civilized world (the US and Europe)....birth control, marriage laws (restrictions), mandatory placement of the mentally ill into facilities, forced abortions, mandated sterilization/castration, and ultimately genocide itself.....came into play.
In some ways, Galton presented an intellectual and scientific argument that made sense on paper, and it's ultimate desire was a better world. How you got there....was ethically wrong in a thousand different ways.
Hadamar, Germany is about an hour's drive west of Frankfurt....in the middle of nowhere. In the late 1800s, they were operating a mental-holding facility. Galton's Eugenics idea was picked by the folks there and became a practiced science (science is likely a poor term to use in this case).
Month after month, Hadamar progressed into their application of the science, and there was nothing much to hinder or slow them down.
Forced sterilization became a pretty routine thing at Hadamar. In the short period leading up to 1941, Hadamar had killed off around 10,000 Germans (these were the handicapped and mentally disturbed Germans, not Jews). The gas used for this group? Just plain carbon monoxide. You'd run a vehicle and simply pipe the monoxide into the room. The facility was basically given a blank check by the Nazi-led government to continue with it's program.
At some point in 1941....the number of bodies being disposed (burned) at the Hadamar facility....became noticed by the local townspeople, and it became public knowledge. This led to the local bishop sending off a letter to Berlin and noting that it was not acceptable behavior. This got the Berlin crowd a bit worried.....mostly over the public knowing and understanding what was going on.
So, there was some thinking put into this, and Hadamar's staff was moved out.....to a couple of locations, and these would become the concentration camps that we all remember from history lessons.
The carbon monoxide replacement element in the new camps? Well....Zyklon B.
Yeah, it's not a household name. It came out of the late 1800s and agricultural developments in California. The product was originally called Hydrogen Cyanide, and it was used for pesticide control. The Germans (via Degesch Company) took the product and redefined it. Again, for the purpose of pesticide control. You could use it for controlling fleas, or clearing out bug-infested areas. There were various legit purposes for the agent.
Why Zyklon B? If you go and read through all the literature on the Nazi era and how this introduced....it was simply a pick by one German military officer (a Captain) who used it for execution purposes over a couple of Russian prisoners in 1941. It was quick, effective, and an agent that you could easily come across. By word of mouth, this traveled around, and within a year, it was the main extermination tools for the concentration camps. A pesticide that started in California sixty years prior....hard to believe.
Hadamar? It gets mentioned once in a while, but it's rare that history professors pick up the topic and talk about the behavior and standards set by this group of doctors.
The use of Sarin or more advanced chemical warfare elements? No. My suspicion is that Zyklon B was an agent which was regarded more as a pesticide than a CW agent. If you'd used Sarin or the more advanced agents.....you were taking various risks with the camp guards or support staff. The fact that it was already used for clearing out bug-infested warehouses and train-cars....made it a fairly used item, with people knowing how to handle it.
As for Eugenics? It's rarely discussed today and generally regarded as a bogus-science.
There's a lot of fine details with Galton. He was apparently bright as a kid.....knowing a fair amount of Greek and Latin before he was seven.
After reading Darwin's book....Galton proposed this idea of what would become Eugenics, give eventually birth to the Hadamar facility and its transformation, and lead onto the death of millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis.
The fact that he produced well over 300 books in his life and was widely read in the science and political field....gave his idea on Eugenics a platform to exist.
The basic theme to Eugenics? There were way too many idiots and incompetent people in the world....so you needed to weed these people out. Galton's chief concept was that you'd sterilize and castrate enough people and over a generation or two....you'd fix this problem. We aren't talking about a friendly optional sterilization or castration program.....we are talking about a mandatory function.
In roughly twenty years....as you gazed across the landscape of the civilized world (the US and Europe)....birth control, marriage laws (restrictions), mandatory placement of the mentally ill into facilities, forced abortions, mandated sterilization/castration, and ultimately genocide itself.....came into play.
In some ways, Galton presented an intellectual and scientific argument that made sense on paper, and it's ultimate desire was a better world. How you got there....was ethically wrong in a thousand different ways.
Hadamar, Germany is about an hour's drive west of Frankfurt....in the middle of nowhere. In the late 1800s, they were operating a mental-holding facility. Galton's Eugenics idea was picked by the folks there and became a practiced science (science is likely a poor term to use in this case).
Month after month, Hadamar progressed into their application of the science, and there was nothing much to hinder or slow them down.
Forced sterilization became a pretty routine thing at Hadamar. In the short period leading up to 1941, Hadamar had killed off around 10,000 Germans (these were the handicapped and mentally disturbed Germans, not Jews). The gas used for this group? Just plain carbon monoxide. You'd run a vehicle and simply pipe the monoxide into the room. The facility was basically given a blank check by the Nazi-led government to continue with it's program.
At some point in 1941....the number of bodies being disposed (burned) at the Hadamar facility....became noticed by the local townspeople, and it became public knowledge. This led to the local bishop sending off a letter to Berlin and noting that it was not acceptable behavior. This got the Berlin crowd a bit worried.....mostly over the public knowing and understanding what was going on.
So, there was some thinking put into this, and Hadamar's staff was moved out.....to a couple of locations, and these would become the concentration camps that we all remember from history lessons.
The carbon monoxide replacement element in the new camps? Well....Zyklon B.
Yeah, it's not a household name. It came out of the late 1800s and agricultural developments in California. The product was originally called Hydrogen Cyanide, and it was used for pesticide control. The Germans (via Degesch Company) took the product and redefined it. Again, for the purpose of pesticide control. You could use it for controlling fleas, or clearing out bug-infested areas. There were various legit purposes for the agent.
Why Zyklon B? If you go and read through all the literature on the Nazi era and how this introduced....it was simply a pick by one German military officer (a Captain) who used it for execution purposes over a couple of Russian prisoners in 1941. It was quick, effective, and an agent that you could easily come across. By word of mouth, this traveled around, and within a year, it was the main extermination tools for the concentration camps. A pesticide that started in California sixty years prior....hard to believe.
Hadamar? It gets mentioned once in a while, but it's rare that history professors pick up the topic and talk about the behavior and standards set by this group of doctors.
The use of Sarin or more advanced chemical warfare elements? No. My suspicion is that Zyklon B was an agent which was regarded more as a pesticide than a CW agent. If you'd used Sarin or the more advanced agents.....you were taking various risks with the camp guards or support staff. The fact that it was already used for clearing out bug-infested warehouses and train-cars....made it a fairly used item, with people knowing how to handle it.
As for Eugenics? It's rarely discussed today and generally regarded as a bogus-science.
Hitler and Chemical Weapons
The topic came up yesterday with the White House press spokesman, in that suggesting that Hitler never used chemical weapons.
So, just to lay out the simple facts to this WW II and chemical weapons usage:
1. In the fall of 1942, a miserable battle took place over a period of five months, and to be referred to as the Battle of Stalingrad. The Soviets beat the Germans, and roughly 700,000 German troops were either dead, wounded, or captured. It was probably the most crucial turning point of WW II. A meeting was held with Hitler. All of the top members of his staff advocated the use of chemical weapons to slow the Soviets down.
2. A month or two after this meeting to talk Hitler into the use of chemical weapons.....another meeting was held. Hitler was told in concrete numbers of what Germany held.....45,000 tons of chemical weapons. Hitler's only response.....to double the amount of sarin production. Oddly, he ordered all chemical weapons in the eastern front to be pulled back....to safer territory....NOT to be used in battle.
3. The primary concern of Hitler? Some staff members hyped up that the Americans, British and Soviets had far more chemical weapons. If he used his.....they would retaliate and make maximum use of their chemical weapons. One of the other fears that gets mentioned is that German officers....maybe all the way down to Captains....might be in some position and just make the decision on their own to use the weapons, and not give Hitler clear authority.
One of the odd stories that you will find on WW II and chemical weapons is that along the Normandy coastal area....there were storage sites with Gas Blau. It would have been a very effective weapon to use, and would have probably stopped the US and British invasion at Normandy. The chief reason it wasn't used? Different people often have speculated on this and some believe the same Hitler concern....that if you used it and the Americans went to chemical weapon usage....the Germans would quickly lose the war.
Everyone, from Hitler, to the allies.....had chemical weapons and were prepared to use them in WW II. It's simply the fear of escalation that prevented this from being a very deadly situation.
So, just to lay out the simple facts to this WW II and chemical weapons usage:
1. In the fall of 1942, a miserable battle took place over a period of five months, and to be referred to as the Battle of Stalingrad. The Soviets beat the Germans, and roughly 700,000 German troops were either dead, wounded, or captured. It was probably the most crucial turning point of WW II. A meeting was held with Hitler. All of the top members of his staff advocated the use of chemical weapons to slow the Soviets down.
2. A month or two after this meeting to talk Hitler into the use of chemical weapons.....another meeting was held. Hitler was told in concrete numbers of what Germany held.....45,000 tons of chemical weapons. Hitler's only response.....to double the amount of sarin production. Oddly, he ordered all chemical weapons in the eastern front to be pulled back....to safer territory....NOT to be used in battle.
3. The primary concern of Hitler? Some staff members hyped up that the Americans, British and Soviets had far more chemical weapons. If he used his.....they would retaliate and make maximum use of their chemical weapons. One of the other fears that gets mentioned is that German officers....maybe all the way down to Captains....might be in some position and just make the decision on their own to use the weapons, and not give Hitler clear authority.
One of the odd stories that you will find on WW II and chemical weapons is that along the Normandy coastal area....there were storage sites with Gas Blau. It would have been a very effective weapon to use, and would have probably stopped the US and British invasion at Normandy. The chief reason it wasn't used? Different people often have speculated on this and some believe the same Hitler concern....that if you used it and the Americans went to chemical weapon usage....the Germans would quickly lose the war.
Everyone, from Hitler, to the allies.....had chemical weapons and were prepared to use them in WW II. It's simply the fear of escalation that prevented this from being a very deadly situation.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
The Gorsuch Topic
I sat and watched the 8PM ARD (public-TV, Channel One) news last night.
Somewhere along item six to eight on this short 15-minute national news segment, they went to a US piece....the new Supreme Court judge.
It was a 90-second piece, with around 15 bits of information on Gorsuch. Toward the end, they wanted the German public to know that the Democrats considered this a "stolen seat". They kinda ended the story at that point....never explaining the stolen seat part of the story.
I sat for a while....pondering over this.
From intellectual Germans.....all of this matters in some way. Most can tell you the head of the US Supreme Court (Roberts), and maybe name two or three of the US Justices, along with Gorsuch now.
The odd thing? If you asked a hundred Germans to name any member of their supreme court....I doubt if any of the hundred could do so. I would guess that 50 percent can name the German chief prosecutor. But from the court system itself? No. They are more or less....nameless individuals. Merkel might be able to name two or three because she's bumped into them at some dinner or party. But the typical average German can't name a single one.
But then you ask yourself.....why pump this story up? It has zero affect on most Germans. In fact, most Germans can name the German national soccer coach than the VP of the US. Most Germans can probably name one promi German cook rather than the head of the House of Representatives in the US.
I often look at the German news media and wonder how connected they are to the general public of the nation. The chief goal or aim is always some intellectual game. For a lot of Germans, the nightly news is some mystery show (ask them to point out Libya on a map and fewer than 10-percent can probably do it).
Somewhere along item six to eight on this short 15-minute national news segment, they went to a US piece....the new Supreme Court judge.
It was a 90-second piece, with around 15 bits of information on Gorsuch. Toward the end, they wanted the German public to know that the Democrats considered this a "stolen seat". They kinda ended the story at that point....never explaining the stolen seat part of the story.
I sat for a while....pondering over this.
From intellectual Germans.....all of this matters in some way. Most can tell you the head of the US Supreme Court (Roberts), and maybe name two or three of the US Justices, along with Gorsuch now.
The odd thing? If you asked a hundred Germans to name any member of their supreme court....I doubt if any of the hundred could do so. I would guess that 50 percent can name the German chief prosecutor. But from the court system itself? No. They are more or less....nameless individuals. Merkel might be able to name two or three because she's bumped into them at some dinner or party. But the typical average German can't name a single one.
But then you ask yourself.....why pump this story up? It has zero affect on most Germans. In fact, most Germans can name the German national soccer coach than the VP of the US. Most Germans can probably name one promi German cook rather than the head of the House of Representatives in the US.
I often look at the German news media and wonder how connected they are to the general public of the nation. The chief goal or aim is always some intellectual game. For a lot of Germans, the nightly news is some mystery show (ask them to point out Libya on a map and fewer than 10-percent can probably do it).
Monday, April 10, 2017
The Crime Numbers Report
Late on Friday, the German federal police released a report that concerned crime and statistics for 2016. It's NOT the kind of report that the Bundestag or Chancellor Merkel would be happy about.
For all of last year, there were roughly 295,000 crimes reported to local, state and federal cops....which go to an immigrant or 'visitor' in Germany. That's up from 205,000 in the year 2015.
Welt reported the bulk of this report. It's the kind of thing that will draw public forums over the next month, as cops, journalists, and politicians try to get a handle over the problem.
Oddly, one of the chief areas reported, was counterfeiting. When bogus bills were turned up or the cops were on some case....around 29-percent of the people arrested or detained....were immigrants or migrants. What the cops didn't say was who exactly. If you asked the federal cops....they might not have the database to divide these up. For example...if the federal cops busted six Serbian gangs up in 2016, and hustled off two-hundred members of their gang for detention, they'd be listed not as an immigrant, but likely as a 'visitor'.
Twenty-six percent of all robberies and brake-in's? Immigrant or visitor. That's a quarter of these situations that they can directly tie a guy of one particular origin to the crime.
Violent assault? Cops arrested or detained twenty-four percent, which were foreign or visitors. Course, you could comment that when some fight broke out in such-and-such visitor center with 12 drunk Somali guys fighting amongst themselves.....all twelve counted as an arrest statistic. I would take a humble guess that between local and state cops.....there's at least 1,500 individuals arrested in these immigration holding centers on assault or fighting charges for 2016. In this case, they were fighting their own crew, their own people, and mostly out of frustration or drunken behavior.
The federal cops also reported in this statistics report.....that 450 individuals were held or arrested because they attempted to kill someone. The someone is not defined in this report....it could be an associate at the refugee center, their wife, or the guy who insulted their wife at the center. It could be someone on the street who just said the wrong thing and got the guy all hyped up. Sixty-six of these individuals were noted as murder suspects. I should note the word suspect because the cops were kinda clear that case hadn't gone to court as of yet.
The landscape for crime in Germany is vast.
You have various criminal gangs which are active in various areas now. You have Lebanese, Serbian, Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Italian, and Tunisian groups which have formed into gangs and get involved in different crime ventures. Some have visas.....some simply use the visitor status....and some just laugh at the rules.
To suggest that the Syrians or Iraqis who sought Germany as a safe-place because of ISIS are part of the big numbers game of crime.....probably won't work. You just don't see enough evidence of that.
Will someone try to force the cops to further identify the sub-divisions of the immigrants or visitors involved in these crimes? Maybe. But I suspect that the politicians would prefer less reporting and just avoid this topic entirely....just saying a criminal is a criminal rather than saying he might be a foreign criminal. The public won't be happy about that, but that's typically the way to handle this.
A crisis stage? No. The federal cops aren't suggesting that.
I think the angle taken by the federal cop report is this....they want to put prosecutors and the BamF group (the immigration controlling agency) at the tip of the problem. If they arrest a hundred immigrants on fairly serious crime (drug sales, assault, home theft, etc)....upon conviction, they want the folks removed from Germany. This long drawn out delay period? It's giving the guy an idea that he got away with his crime and that no one is serious about enforcing laws in Germany. The cops have a point in this.
The other side of this problem is that a fair number of people in Germany aren't in the immigration or asylum group. These are Romanians, Bulgarians, and Russians. In this case, something of a more creative nature will have to be done.
In an election year, the statistics shown don't really help the top two political parties or Merkel. It makes their political slant a bit more difficult. Both the SPD and CDU parties will have to react, and talk about an issue which they aren't happy to discuss. In the end.....there's likely to be more solutions put on the table to make voters happy.
For all of last year, there were roughly 295,000 crimes reported to local, state and federal cops....which go to an immigrant or 'visitor' in Germany. That's up from 205,000 in the year 2015.
Welt reported the bulk of this report. It's the kind of thing that will draw public forums over the next month, as cops, journalists, and politicians try to get a handle over the problem.
Oddly, one of the chief areas reported, was counterfeiting. When bogus bills were turned up or the cops were on some case....around 29-percent of the people arrested or detained....were immigrants or migrants. What the cops didn't say was who exactly. If you asked the federal cops....they might not have the database to divide these up. For example...if the federal cops busted six Serbian gangs up in 2016, and hustled off two-hundred members of their gang for detention, they'd be listed not as an immigrant, but likely as a 'visitor'.
Twenty-six percent of all robberies and brake-in's? Immigrant or visitor. That's a quarter of these situations that they can directly tie a guy of one particular origin to the crime.
Violent assault? Cops arrested or detained twenty-four percent, which were foreign or visitors. Course, you could comment that when some fight broke out in such-and-such visitor center with 12 drunk Somali guys fighting amongst themselves.....all twelve counted as an arrest statistic. I would take a humble guess that between local and state cops.....there's at least 1,500 individuals arrested in these immigration holding centers on assault or fighting charges for 2016. In this case, they were fighting their own crew, their own people, and mostly out of frustration or drunken behavior.
The federal cops also reported in this statistics report.....that 450 individuals were held or arrested because they attempted to kill someone. The someone is not defined in this report....it could be an associate at the refugee center, their wife, or the guy who insulted their wife at the center. It could be someone on the street who just said the wrong thing and got the guy all hyped up. Sixty-six of these individuals were noted as murder suspects. I should note the word suspect because the cops were kinda clear that case hadn't gone to court as of yet.
The landscape for crime in Germany is vast.
You have various criminal gangs which are active in various areas now. You have Lebanese, Serbian, Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Italian, and Tunisian groups which have formed into gangs and get involved in different crime ventures. Some have visas.....some simply use the visitor status....and some just laugh at the rules.
To suggest that the Syrians or Iraqis who sought Germany as a safe-place because of ISIS are part of the big numbers game of crime.....probably won't work. You just don't see enough evidence of that.
Will someone try to force the cops to further identify the sub-divisions of the immigrants or visitors involved in these crimes? Maybe. But I suspect that the politicians would prefer less reporting and just avoid this topic entirely....just saying a criminal is a criminal rather than saying he might be a foreign criminal. The public won't be happy about that, but that's typically the way to handle this.
A crisis stage? No. The federal cops aren't suggesting that.
I think the angle taken by the federal cop report is this....they want to put prosecutors and the BamF group (the immigration controlling agency) at the tip of the problem. If they arrest a hundred immigrants on fairly serious crime (drug sales, assault, home theft, etc)....upon conviction, they want the folks removed from Germany. This long drawn out delay period? It's giving the guy an idea that he got away with his crime and that no one is serious about enforcing laws in Germany. The cops have a point in this.
The other side of this problem is that a fair number of people in Germany aren't in the immigration or asylum group. These are Romanians, Bulgarians, and Russians. In this case, something of a more creative nature will have to be done.
In an election year, the statistics shown don't really help the top two political parties or Merkel. It makes their political slant a bit more difficult. Both the SPD and CDU parties will have to react, and talk about an issue which they aren't happy to discuss. In the end.....there's likely to be more solutions put on the table to make voters happy.
Sunday, April 9, 2017
My Zugspitze Story
This is probably one of those stories which ought to be a 300-page book, but I'll try to weave this story into a simple forty line piece.
If you've never been to Germany....let me introduce you to the Zugspitze. It's the highest point in Germany....right at the bottom of any map you drag up of the nation. It's about 20 kilometers SW of Garmisch.
Typically, most visitors to the mountain go up in the winter period and do some ski activity. If you go up in the summer....snow will still be around but melting. In the summer period....you are just there to gaze off into the distance, admire the scenery, sip some beer, and have a decent Schnitzel plate.
There are three ways to reach the top. First, by cable car. Second, by train (yeah, those Germans actually dug through the mountain and built a railway to the top). This is typically the way that I suggest that you go and visit. Then, you have the third method.....you walk or hike to the top. It's 2,962 meters above sea-level, and it's a far hike. It'd typically take you eight hours....figure in a couple of stops, and a decent pace (nothing fast). The trail is marked out and fairly simple to figure.....with lots of hearty Germans making the hike each year.
So, this is how my story unfolds.
In the region around the Zugsspitze....there is this extreme endurance race....called the Zugspitz-Extremberglauf. It's a run of roughly 20 kilometers. You start at the bottom of the mountain and run up the trail. It takes an average of two hours for the better runners to make it to the top.
One of the odd features of the mountain is that weather fronts move in and out of the region on an hourly basis. You could start the race on a completely sunny day, and find in one hour a fairly storm and cold front has moved in. Even in July, it can be below freezing on some occasions.
So in 2008....on 13 July....the race started. The weather change occurred, and the temperature became a problem. The runners? It's hard to say if they really noticed it or understood just how big a problem it was to become. At the bottom of the mountain....the temperature was near 20C....but at the top and an hour later....it was near 0C (freezing). Some snow was falling.
By mid-afternoon....two of the runners were dead. Seven others were in bad shape and needed a helicopter to get them off the side of the mountain. With snow falling, it was a miserable mess for the rescue teams to move in and help those affected.
Lot of anger and frustration by the families of the dead. Court action occurred, and the head guy of the event was given some guilty situation. Appeals occurred, and by the end....a judge finally said that a fair amount of warning was given in the literature and this guy could not be held responsible. In the US.....the families would have sued the event....but in Germany, that's the not the accepted procedure.
We sat and discussed this event in my office the next day. As one guy noted, this was a demonstration of tough Germans....they weren't going to stop or discontinue their participation in such a race. You would have had to stand up in the middle of the course and just order the event 'finished'. I kinda agreed with that perception..
What surprised me is that the trails weren't closed off or some warning device installed to prevent hikers from making the same mistake again. You can go up and walk this trail 365 days out of the year (I wouldn't advise it).
Stopping the event entirely? No. It continued on for 2009. Oddly....close to 20 inches of snow fell the day prior to that race on the Zugspitze in 2009....so they went to a plan B course instead.
3629: The Last One-Thousand Germans
I pulled up an Excel spreadsheet today, and did a simple ten-minute exercise in building a spreadsheet to show the decline issue in German population. It's generally accepted these days in Germans that the 82-million population will shrink over the next twenty-odd years and hit 65-to-70 million. I've often sat and wondered why bother stopping at the twenty-odd year point.
So, if you continue the same trend of a 1.4 for a birthrate....you end up in fifty years with 58-million.
In 200 years, it'll be 20-million.
In 290 years, it'll be 10-million.
In 628 years, it'll be 1-million.
In 957 years, it'll be 100,000.
Around 803 years into the future.....Wiesbaden will be down to it's last 1,000 residents (285,000 presently). There probably would still be two pizzerias in operation, and at least one ice cream shop.
In 595 years, Neuwied would reach it's last 1,000 residents.
In 898 years, Bremen would reach it's last 1,000 residents.
In today's environment, it's hard to imagine such a dramatic shift. Oddly, it's not the plague or some catastrophic dam failure....it's just that the declining birth-rate has an eventual impact.
When German leadership seems to be so pro-migrant or pro-immigrant, there's some thought process in that something is better than nothing.
It would be hard to imagine standing around in 3629 and looking over some vast land called Germany, and to imagine there are just 1,000 hearty Germans left. Some guy will be Chancellor...at least sixty folks will note their status as intellectuals, and fifteen-percent of the crowd will still be on welfare or Hartz-IV status.
Oktoberfest? My humble guess is that about five-hundred years in the future (with the total population at 10-million).....it'll have to end or they will have to hire Greeks or Italians to come in and help run the fest.
So, a moment to pause over and think about this projected outcome. We might even be shocked in 3629 to learn that the last thousand Germans are mostly ethnic non-Germans (Pole-Germans, Turk-Germans, and Syrian-Germans).
Just something to think about.
So, if you continue the same trend of a 1.4 for a birthrate....you end up in fifty years with 58-million.
In 200 years, it'll be 20-million.
In 290 years, it'll be 10-million.
In 628 years, it'll be 1-million.
In 957 years, it'll be 100,000.
Around 803 years into the future.....Wiesbaden will be down to it's last 1,000 residents (285,000 presently). There probably would still be two pizzerias in operation, and at least one ice cream shop.
In 595 years, Neuwied would reach it's last 1,000 residents.
In 898 years, Bremen would reach it's last 1,000 residents.
In today's environment, it's hard to imagine such a dramatic shift. Oddly, it's not the plague or some catastrophic dam failure....it's just that the declining birth-rate has an eventual impact.
When German leadership seems to be so pro-migrant or pro-immigrant, there's some thought process in that something is better than nothing.
It would be hard to imagine standing around in 3629 and looking over some vast land called Germany, and to imagine there are just 1,000 hearty Germans left. Some guy will be Chancellor...at least sixty folks will note their status as intellectuals, and fifteen-percent of the crowd will still be on welfare or Hartz-IV status.
Oktoberfest? My humble guess is that about five-hundred years in the future (with the total population at 10-million).....it'll have to end or they will have to hire Greeks or Italians to come in and help run the fest.
So, a moment to pause over and think about this projected outcome. We might even be shocked in 3629 to learn that the last thousand Germans are mostly ethnic non-Germans (Pole-Germans, Turk-Germans, and Syrian-Germans).
Just something to think about.
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Observation About German Crime
I sat and watched a German news segment this week.....featuring a new crime analysis database. Some Germans finally got smart....put together a database attached to a map, and have this fantastic map displaying home-break-in's and robbery's. They looked at the map and came to this one conclusion.
It's an odd thing.....what you tend to see is major urbanized areas (like Frankfurt, or Stuttgart, or Essen), where there is a light amount of crime, and then the magnet towns around these (connected by an autobahn).....which are getting hit at a fairly alarming rate. So they came to this conclusion....the gangs all live in the urbanized areas and hit the small towns within thirty to sixty minutes of their home-base, using the autobahn as the entry into and out of the target town.
If you were a mayor gazing over this analysis....you would come to one single conclusion.
You need to figure out the two or three major avenues from these magnet towns to the autobahn entrance/exit, and put high-definition cameras there.....running from 10PM to 6AM. After a break-in, you pull up the images and look for cars with the plates of the nearby metropolis. You get the list of twenty-odd tags that came into your town after 10PM, and send two cops out to visit each guy and ask why they were there. The alibis will be checked out.....and eventually you will come to one single guy who can't make an alibi that works. So you start to ID him and have his phone tapped. His gang will then start to become a target of the cops.
It might take a year for all these potential wisdom to become reality, but you can sense that some gangs are living on short time at this point.
It's an odd thing.....what you tend to see is major urbanized areas (like Frankfurt, or Stuttgart, or Essen), where there is a light amount of crime, and then the magnet towns around these (connected by an autobahn).....which are getting hit at a fairly alarming rate. So they came to this conclusion....the gangs all live in the urbanized areas and hit the small towns within thirty to sixty minutes of their home-base, using the autobahn as the entry into and out of the target town.
If you were a mayor gazing over this analysis....you would come to one single conclusion.
You need to figure out the two or three major avenues from these magnet towns to the autobahn entrance/exit, and put high-definition cameras there.....running from 10PM to 6AM. After a break-in, you pull up the images and look for cars with the plates of the nearby metropolis. You get the list of twenty-odd tags that came into your town after 10PM, and send two cops out to visit each guy and ask why they were there. The alibis will be checked out.....and eventually you will come to one single guy who can't make an alibi that works. So you start to ID him and have his phone tapped. His gang will then start to become a target of the cops.
It might take a year for all these potential wisdom to become reality, but you can sense that some gangs are living on short time at this point.
The Deportation Story
The story came out in Germany in the last week or two....and begs for a lot of questions.
Here is a young guy.....born in Germany.....22 years old....of Nigerian heritage.
Two months ago, this guy and another, were arrested in Gottingen for terror planning. It's a curious piece because no real charges were drafted up. The prosecution determined that the Nigerian, while born in Germany....did hold Nigerian citizenship.
So this process occurred, and in a matter of weeks (probably a shock to the kid involved)....Germany had a deal worked up where the kid would be deported to Nigeria and they'd accept him. Yeah, no jail time....no silly court action to face....just dump him on the streets of Nigeria.
There's no interview of the kid or comments made....but he's standing in Lagos, Nigeria right now today. I doubt if he speaks any of the local language and there's zero possibility of any job-skills to fit the environment....other than selling watermelons on the street or loading delivery trucks.
I just kinda shake my head over this situation. Here was some kid who had potential....had German schooling....and all of these remarkable opportunities, he wasted. In Lagos, he's dumped on the street and will find that there's one-percent of the opportunities that he had in Germany.
All of this...because of Islamic fundamental feelings? Yeah.
My humble guess is that he'll make way north to the coast and have someone help fund his way onto a raft, and try to make it back into Germany within six months. You probably haven't seen the last of him. The cops probably know this, and will simply keep an open eye out for him.
Here is a young guy.....born in Germany.....22 years old....of Nigerian heritage.
Two months ago, this guy and another, were arrested in Gottingen for terror planning. It's a curious piece because no real charges were drafted up. The prosecution determined that the Nigerian, while born in Germany....did hold Nigerian citizenship.
So this process occurred, and in a matter of weeks (probably a shock to the kid involved)....Germany had a deal worked up where the kid would be deported to Nigeria and they'd accept him. Yeah, no jail time....no silly court action to face....just dump him on the streets of Nigeria.
There's no interview of the kid or comments made....but he's standing in Lagos, Nigeria right now today. I doubt if he speaks any of the local language and there's zero possibility of any job-skills to fit the environment....other than selling watermelons on the street or loading delivery trucks.
I just kinda shake my head over this situation. Here was some kid who had potential....had German schooling....and all of these remarkable opportunities, he wasted. In Lagos, he's dumped on the street and will find that there's one-percent of the opportunities that he had in Germany.
All of this...because of Islamic fundamental feelings? Yeah.
My humble guess is that he'll make way north to the coast and have someone help fund his way onto a raft, and try to make it back into Germany within six months. You probably haven't seen the last of him. The cops probably know this, and will simply keep an open eye out for him.
Bringing Back the old "H"
It was a simplistic vehicle....front-wheel drive....hanging low to the ground and giving you almost six-feet of standing room in the rear. Almost half a million were manufactured. It was never really appreciated.
About a decade after they stopped making the vehicle....the public suddenly found an affection to the odd vehicle. It was the choice for mobile coffee shops and snack bars. Customizing became a big thing. And a fair-sized market existed for the used vehicles in good shape.
This week....FC Mobilili came out and said that it's time to bring the van back. Well....almost.
What is being drafted up is a conversion kit for the Citroen Jumper. It's a fiberglass body, which you would fit onto your new Jumper vehicle. Cost? Unknown at this point.
What you have a particular-looking vehicle that the public has an appeal for. It's like a magnet.
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Parties in the Election
WDR reported that the government committee which approves the election listing on parties....completed their episode as of this week. Thirty-one political parties are now listed for the national election. There are a couple which missed the 'mark' and won't be listed. Chief problem for some parties? You need to present a petition with 1,000 folks listed, and for the smaller and minor parties....this is a big deal.
Among the lesser-known parties?
- The Party. Mostly a collection of folks who don't take any of this political stuff serious, and make a parody out of the whole process.
- The BIG Party (Alliance for Innovation and Justice). Basically a party designed for immigrants and migrants of Germany....with the emphasis of perserving your culture. The group also talks about "a interest-weighted economic system within the free market economy".
- The People's vote. Oddly....a party focused on Swiss nationality (don't ask). They want a rise in pension levels (meaning the gov't paying out of the tax revenue pot). They also want a return to the old Deutsche Mark. And they'd like more tax relief for familities.
- The Alliance of German Democrats - AD- Democrats NRW. This group wants the local communal right to vote for all foreign citizens. They advocate a better and simplier tax system, where families with 3 kids don't pay any income tax. With their system, homeschooling would be allowed, and public schools would be forced into competition.
- The V Party³ - for change, vegetarians and vegans. Basically emerged out of nowhere in Munich last year. The party talks about agricultural production without any animals.....no chemistry in food and no genetic manipulation.
- The Beautiful Life Party. Another party that appeared out of nowhere in 2016....from Essen. The chief them is a social-dynamic basic income. Basically, everyone would be paid an income....whether they work or not....welfare would just disappear. The party also talks about having an education for everyone, which conforms to the individual (you could probably study unicorns under their system).
Why so many multi-party players? If you look at the top five or six political parties in Germany....they have a limited platform where they chat or emphasize maybe fifteen to twenty things in a realistic fashion. In the 1990s as technology bloomed in Germany.....no one chatted much about privacy or data collection....so the Pirate Party came out of nowhere and got a lot of attention....then the main five or six parties realized that they had to have a policy, and adapted. The Pirates, because of this change in the landscape....now have problems and are a dwindling political party.
What you tend to see from the 31 parties listed is a lot of smaller parties coming into existence in the last decade, and emphasizing various things that aren't on the top twenty list for most Germans. A good example is the genetic crop situation, homeschooling, and basic income. To be honest....I doubt if more than five-percent of the public has any feeling over those three topics....but you can find enough to register a party and run nationally.
If you go out and talk to working-class Germans....around 50-percent will say that they have one particular party that they vote for, and they rarely vote outside of that party (zero chance for any up-start or minor party). From the remaining half, most will say they have a primary party and a frustration-vote party (typically Greens, FDP, and AfD). Then you come to the ten-percent group who want to always send a message or frustration vote, and go for these 25-odd parties who have no real chance to gather big votes.
The one curious thing is that two of the parties listed of the 31....are aiming strictly at immigrants, migrants and new Germans. A decade ago, you would have said they had no chance in getting votes. So it'll be curious if one of the parties (maybe the BIG Party) might be able to swing two percent of the vote and show some future possibility of growth. One thing to consider is that the vast majority of people who came into Germany since 2013....aren't German citizens yet and can't vote in this election. So I wouldn't figure any high hopes on immigrant votes in 2017 mattering much.
Among the lesser-known parties?
- The Party. Mostly a collection of folks who don't take any of this political stuff serious, and make a parody out of the whole process.
- The BIG Party (Alliance for Innovation and Justice). Basically a party designed for immigrants and migrants of Germany....with the emphasis of perserving your culture. The group also talks about "a interest-weighted economic system within the free market economy".
- The People's vote. Oddly....a party focused on Swiss nationality (don't ask). They want a rise in pension levels (meaning the gov't paying out of the tax revenue pot). They also want a return to the old Deutsche Mark. And they'd like more tax relief for familities.
- The Alliance of German Democrats - AD- Democrats NRW. This group wants the local communal right to vote for all foreign citizens. They advocate a better and simplier tax system, where families with 3 kids don't pay any income tax. With their system, homeschooling would be allowed, and public schools would be forced into competition.
- The V Party³ - for change, vegetarians and vegans. Basically emerged out of nowhere in Munich last year. The party talks about agricultural production without any animals.....no chemistry in food and no genetic manipulation.
- The Beautiful Life Party. Another party that appeared out of nowhere in 2016....from Essen. The chief them is a social-dynamic basic income. Basically, everyone would be paid an income....whether they work or not....welfare would just disappear. The party also talks about having an education for everyone, which conforms to the individual (you could probably study unicorns under their system).
Why so many multi-party players? If you look at the top five or six political parties in Germany....they have a limited platform where they chat or emphasize maybe fifteen to twenty things in a realistic fashion. In the 1990s as technology bloomed in Germany.....no one chatted much about privacy or data collection....so the Pirate Party came out of nowhere and got a lot of attention....then the main five or six parties realized that they had to have a policy, and adapted. The Pirates, because of this change in the landscape....now have problems and are a dwindling political party.
What you tend to see from the 31 parties listed is a lot of smaller parties coming into existence in the last decade, and emphasizing various things that aren't on the top twenty list for most Germans. A good example is the genetic crop situation, homeschooling, and basic income. To be honest....I doubt if more than five-percent of the public has any feeling over those three topics....but you can find enough to register a party and run nationally.
If you go out and talk to working-class Germans....around 50-percent will say that they have one particular party that they vote for, and they rarely vote outside of that party (zero chance for any up-start or minor party). From the remaining half, most will say they have a primary party and a frustration-vote party (typically Greens, FDP, and AfD). Then you come to the ten-percent group who want to always send a message or frustration vote, and go for these 25-odd parties who have no real chance to gather big votes.
The one curious thing is that two of the parties listed of the 31....are aiming strictly at immigrants, migrants and new Germans. A decade ago, you would have said they had no chance in getting votes. So it'll be curious if one of the parties (maybe the BIG Party) might be able to swing two percent of the vote and show some future possibility of growth. One thing to consider is that the vast majority of people who came into Germany since 2013....aren't German citizens yet and can't vote in this election. So I wouldn't figure any high hopes on immigrant votes in 2017 mattering much.
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