Trying to Make Sense Out of This EU-UK 'Fight'?

 If you try to view it through German public TV or the BBC, it seems to involve 700 pages of material and made extremely complicated.  

I sat through a simple N-TV news production this morning which drew the whole fiasco down to thirty simple lines.

Back in the spring of 2020, with hype driving vaccination chatter and how it'd come to save lives....there were angles of  process going on.  There was the German-process-for Germans, and the EU-process-for-all-of-Europe. The Germans were not going to be hindered.  They settled early on with BionTech.

The EU?  They were extremely hesitant.  When they did step forward....their 'betting' was set upon Sanofi (a French company) and Janssen (a Belgium company).

A curious thing happened as late summer came on....neither Sanofi or Janssen were doing well in the lab tests.  BionTech?  They were doing fantastic.

Another curious thing happened in the month or two ahead of these results....the EU signed a contract for 500 million bottles from Sanofi/Janssen.  

So steps in the Brit company....AstraZeneca.  Positive results.  

Looking at results....the US and the UK both moved ahead in late July (100 million doses for the US and 30 million for the UK). 

The EU?  They simply sat there.  Either they were hoping that Sanofi or Janssen would recover via later tests, or that they just couldn't go sign up with a deal with a Brit company.  Nothing much is admitted by the EU over the late-stage contract or why their strategy went this way.  

So in mid-November...the EU finally reacted and did a contract.  300 million doses.

My humble view?  I think literally everyone within the EU top level were set to the French Sanofi or Belgium Janssen solutions.  

This stumbling around now?  Basically some deflective 'act' to pretend that poor management at the top level of the EU is not possible.  

If this type of 'act' had occurred in Germany?  There would be a public outcry and mass calling for Spahn (the Health Minister) to be fired.  But remember the key gimmick of the EU mechanism....no one ever gets fired for anything.  

A CSU Strategy Point?

 It's a curious public discussion item, and probably built in a way to be part of the 2021 election topics.  The discussion?  The CDU Party (Merkel's right-of-center folks)....would like to have a registration of all Islamic mosques in Germany.  Looking at the hype of the chatter (a ARD public TV news item)....it's more of a chance to take back votes from the AfD Party and show that there is some control over radical Islam in Germany.

To be honest, no religion in Germany has to register itself in any form.  If you do want to be tax-free status.....you have to agree to a fairly straight-forward list of regulations and be totally 'open' about your finances.  

So as you can imagine....to chat about this CDU idea....the question of the Constitution comes up. They kinda admit....presently, it's not exactly something you can do....without modifying the Constitution in some minor way.

Part of this discussion also leads to exterior-money (from beyond the border) that flows in and the CDU group would like to suggest that it needs to be monitored and publicly admitted (you could call it transparency).

Politically speaking....it might sell well to folks who have the tendency to vote AfD.  With this, we might as well admit that half the folks who voted for the AfD in the past....were doing it more so...to send a message to the CDU and SPD folks.  They weren't exactly hardcore AfD members.

Getting it passed in the Constitution to allow a change?  You need more than 50-percent of the membership to agree.  So even if all of the CDU members voted 'yes'....you'd need either the partnership coalition 'friend' or extra votes from the AfD to get this passed.  The odds here?  Unknown.

Would the Islamic folks get upset by this?  If you said all religions were registered and all funds monitored....I think the majority wouldn't say much.

Would this cure Germany of radical Islam?  No....They'd just find ways to pass funding into the country without it being monitored.  In the case of controlling the various groups and radical individuals?  You might make the case that once identified as a 'radical'....you'd create some way to 'blackball' the individual and isolate him or her out of the identified groups.  Whether this would work in reality?  Unknown.

Hype over something that may not even occur?  That really is the bulk of this discussion.  You could wake up a month after the election and find that this suggestion is zeroed out and not part of the future agenda for the CDU.  Then you'd realize that it was a fake agenda to get some votes back, without any real value in the end.  

Banned Entry Rule?

 Starting tonight, five countries are on the German list for forbidden entry into Germany (via any method....bus, plane, railway).

The five?  Portugal, Ireland, Great Britain, South Africa and Brazil. 

Federal decision?  Yes, from the Minister of Interior.

How long?  Up to the 17th.  Could it be extended?  I'd suggest another two weeks is very possible.

To include more countries next week?  I'd put the odds at better than fifty-percent. 

Germans coming back from these countries....with the test complete?  Yes. A big deal here in February?  I just don't think that many folks vacation in Germany in this period.

Covid-Chatter

 It's not anything to laugh about but it does make you sit and ponder.

N-TV had a short update today over a fairly high-ranking member of the Bundestag....from the FDP Party. 

Hermann Otto Solms is eighty years old, and is a senior president of the German Bundestag....which has a fair amount of rank attached to it.

Yesterday, he sat down and did an interview....over Covid-19, and he has this interesting prospective.

You see....for three weeks....as a member of the priority two group (the ninety-year old folks get ahead of him)....he's been trying to get a reservation for a vaccination appointment.  Results? Nothing.

He has apparently tried the internet program, and it doesn't seem to work.  He's done the phone calls, and that doesn't seem to work.

As he says...."Nobody felt responsible."

The fact that he's living in Berlin but not really a Berlin resident?  Well....no one says much but that might also part of the problem.

N-TV bringing up Israel?  Well, yeah....they brought up the fact now that 20-percent of the nation was done around the 21st of January.  You can figure the end point will be reached in roughly four weeks, at the current pace of things.

Then this curious observation gets brought up....the Bundestag guy had talked to his pharmacist.  For the entire period 2020....this guy had sold the least amount of antibiotics ever (for a year).  It's just odd in his mind....all this non-flu business, and normal infections that you'd have....just plain disappeared.

Yeah, it was a slam of sorts, but it's also an indicator of serious problems and how the goal of reaching 75-percent of German society by mid-summer.....probably won't happen. 

Ten Little Things About the Treaty of Versailles

 To end World War I, the Treaty of Versailles became the last stumbling block.  So ten little odd things:

1.  The treaty was 240 pages....easily read in about twelve hours.  

2.  The treaty has nothing to do with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ended the German-Hapsburg-Ottoman-Bulgaria 'war' with the Russians (really the Bolsheviks).  This was signed on 3 March 1918.  Roughly a quarter of the population (overnight) went from being Russian....to being something else.  Coal mines?  They went to the 'winners'.  

The fact that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk gave the Germans rekindled hope that they could still win the other war?  It's one of those odd topics that is still debated by historians even today. 

3.  Mass desertions and civilian strikes in Germany (1918) did more to trigger the end of the war and the treaty action than military action itself.  The four years had taken a major toll on German society and industry.

4. Because of the manpower required for the war-machine itself, and the industry around it....farming suffered a great deal.  Agricultural production could not be maintained as the war went into 1915/1916.  Various estimates exist over the number of Germans who starved in this period (1914-1919)....the high side is 750,000....the low side is around 424,000.  Note, this has nothing to do with the war dead, or the 'pest' (the Spanish Flu).  

5.  What is signed in November 1918....is merely a cease-fire document....nothing else.  The peace talks?  They didn't start until January 1919.  Seventy-odd delegates showed up to represent 27 countries.  Everyone....more or less....wanted a piece of the action.  This proved to be useless, and it quickly turned into a council of ten people speaking for the bulk.  Oddly enough, Japan had two seats on this initial council).  It took only days to realize that this council was still too big and needed to be whittled down even more (at least from the non-German side).

6.  Roughly a quarter of all French men didn't return from the war.  So they had a different prospective on things than everyone else. 

7.  The lack of Republicans on the Wilson 'peace' team?  Well....yeah, this was particularly noticed and openly discussed back in DC. Wilson's chief selling point for his peace team?  They were intellectuals, and knew the fine art of diplomacy.

8.  There was a brief period in the summer of 1919, where the treaty was stalled and the German team was backing away from any further talks.  At this moment, the British, the French and Americans basically said that the war would start up (not just hinting in a month or two) but in a matter of days.  They felt with the manpower they still had on the field....they could cross the Rhine in one single day.  

Militarily?  For the Germans, there just wasn't any real major force existing. The bulk of their army in November/December 1918....packed up and went home.  For the US AEF members?  There in the mid-summer of 1919, there were still 750k in France.  They wouldn't start to return home until fall period of 1919.  

9.  The size of the German police force?  It was actually included as a topic in the treaty, and limited to the size it had before the war.  Some consideration was written, if population increased in major cities.  Creation of an official paramilitary situation in Germany?  Forbidden.  That's what made the Brown Shirts in the 1930s so unique....they weren't official.  

10.  While the French politicians got a lot of public applause over the signing of the treaty (28 June 1919)....within weeks, the far-right had pushed negativity over the deal to such a degree....that anything gained for political opportunities, disappeared.  The right figured that a lot more compensation should have been written into the deal.  

When the Funnel is 2 MM (.07 inches)

 This is an essay to describe the current vaccine mess in Europe, the EU marginalized thought process, the expectations of the general public, the death rate, the healthcare crisis, the vaccine companies, and something called 'reality'.

I worked for a boss at some stage in my life where various negative events were unfolding within the organization, and the boss came to this analytical moment.  He made a brief one-minute survey of the situation and basically said....'when you reach the stage that the 'funnel' of operations has shifted from a 1-inch pipe (2.5 cm) to a .07 inch pipe (2 mm)....s**t doesn't flow through, and you need to view everything in a more harsh environment.  Whoever or whatever triggered this....needs to be removed from the landscape.'

There was an awful lot of chatter back in March, April and May of 2020....how we just need to get through the next eight months, and a 'Jesus-vaccine' would arrive.  

What they failed to mention here....there would be various 'Jesus-vaccines'.....made in different countries, with different companies.  

They also failed to mention that a priority list would be required, with old people, medical folks, police, politicians, teachers....listed as first.

They then failed to mention that on day one of the 'Jesus-vaccine' delivery, even if they jabbed sixteen hours out of the day....seven days a week....it'd likely take seven months to accomplish something like 80-percent of the population.

They also failed to mention that maybe a quarter or more of the population would question the 'Jesus-vaccines', and not readily volunteer.

Then they failed to mention that in the fall of 2020....the big number of infections would return, but be even triple what you'd seen in April.  They also failed to mention in Germany....a thousand deaths a day (mostly older folks) were being the 'norm' by December.

Then they kinda failed to mentioned that the EU mechanism was the device that most countries were depending upon, and reality set in....around late December....that maybe it was a good thing that Germany had gone off on it's own....setting up a contract and getting their own company in a positive position.

Then they failed to mention that quality measures in the company process (not just one, but virtually all of them) would set into motion batches being 'dumped' and delays would start to fall into play (like in Portugal, Spain, France).  

This week, if you stood there gazing at the landscape and the vaccine business....this 'funnel' has downsized itself from a full inch (2.5 cm) to a .07 inch (2 mm) size.  It doesn't matter how big that barrel of whiskey is....your share from a group of 50-million consumers would require at least six months to get a half-shot glass of content out of this stupid funnel (that's really being optimistic).

Blame?  Well.....the company will tell you.....if you got a bad batch out of the process, you sure as hell don't want to inject yourself with worthless crappy vaccine that might only be 30-percent effective or give you a pretty harsh reaction where you lay in some intensive care situation for three weeks with nurse Greta attending to your care for 15 brief minutes out of the day.

The EU?  Trying as hard as possible to portray themselves as a 'Jesus-organization'.....you eventually reach a point where you think it's a comedy club of folks who failed mostly in their own countries and figured the comedy-club in Brussels would be a better place to be.  

If a commercial company ran this way?  Imagine McDonalds telling you at the front door....you can get full service, but there's no sodas....mostly because they failed to order cups at the normal rate, and they don't really have a plan 'B'.  Or you step into a bar to find that they've got plenty of wine and booze....but no beer, mostly because Fred failed to sign the contracts to ensure weekly delivery by the beer distributor.  

How this opera goes for 2021?  I suspect the Germans might be the only ones mostly complete (at the 75-percent level) by September.  I also suspect that various folks in Spain and France will only get the first shot, and be told of a national shortage....where the whole process has to start fresh from scratch by December (again).  Then finally, I expect some big grand Jesus-speech by the EU toward December....thanking itself for handling a big mess, and saving countless lives.

Comedians?  They've got enough fresh new material now, for at least six months. 

This Little German View on Older Folks Taking the AstraZeneca?

 So to explain this story, you have to go to the trial situation and how the AstraZeneca built the testing subject group.  

Eight-percent of the group were over 65....that's it.  The 92-percent left?  Between ages 18 and 65.  That was the initial test situation, and that was what the Germans went with....when building the rules.

The Daily Mail talked to this topic a good bit and is worth a read.

If you are a German, 66 years old, and now have access to AstraZeneca?  Your doctor won't give it to you.  

Newer test group data?  Well...yeah, and with higher numbers of people over 65, with all positive results.  The odds that the Germans will update their vaccination rules?  Normally, I'd suggest that within thirty days....they'd review the data and change the rules.  Right now?  There's so much anti-Brit attitude....I doubt if they will change the rules for at least six months (my humble feeling).

An amusing childish game?  Well....the EU went to the next step of saying no export license will be issued for AstraZeneca production folks in Belgium until all orders for EU customers are done.  Even if the contracts signed with non-EU members exist, with higher payments and higher priorities in the mix?  Yeah. In simple terms, if AstraZeneca misses on delivery because of this (to a non-EU customer), then it'll go to court action.  Figure two to three years, and somewhere down the line....some half-billion Euro damage situation will occur with the EU paying a massive fine. 

You can laugh over this whole game, but it would serve the EU well now....to bring in a number of new faces from Greece, Denmark, or Portugal....and retire out the folks with Britain constantly on their mind.  

The next EU election?  Not until 2024.  

Germany and Covid-19: 30 Jan 2021

 1.  The EU approved the Astrazeneca for use.  At this point, the company can start shipping (at least in theory).  The one odd gimmick to this?  The EU wrote into the rules for the drug....it can only be administered to adults (over 18).  Amusingly enough, Germany has a extra rule written for it....it cannot be administered to anyone over the age of 65.  

Once the contract was put out in public view (Friday morning)....a fair number of folks began to shut up over criticism of the deal and the company.  German comedians on Friday evening shows had a bit of wit over the EU management of this.  

2.  Bavaria's Premier-President (Soder) wants the Chinese and Russian vaccines reviewed and approved for use in Germany.  Chief reason?  Another layer of production and potential usage. 

3.  German air travel being severely limited in the near-future?  The government has written a paper on how it'd be cut (probably through the Easter holiday period).  N-TV has a decent report on this and it's worth reading. 

4.  I walked into my village grocery today.  Big basket of FFP-2 masks.  Listed price?  Twenty in a box....marked for 36 Euro (figure around 40 US dollars).  Roughly 1.80 Euro per mask.  What I paid two weeks ago when the mandate came up suddenly at some local pharmacy?  3.50 Euro per mask.   Yeah....big price drop in a two-week period.  

The EU Screw-Up

 Focus reporters sat down with the Brit company Aztrazeneca's contract with the EU.  I've chatted about this for a day or two.

What's really in the contract?  The EU screwed up.  There is NO binding words, that say an obligation to a date exists.  NONE.

I would strongly recommend a read of the contract.

What I suspect happened?  A lot of people profess they are experts at writing contracts.  I came across them in my military years and the contractor years.  If you don't put a deliver 'by-date', the contract is crap.  

I had a requirement for some office furniture at some point, and went to the finance officer that we had.  As I found out....the guy was marginally qualified for the job and the contract that was signed?  Instead of a delivery in sixty days....it was pretty much open.  I tried to talk with the company we'd done business with, and they wanted another thousand dollars to meet this new delivery-date.  I just shook my head.....we weren't going to do that.  So we waited (it took seven months to get this delivery).  After that point, I read every single contract that was written by the finance officers involving our requirements.  

The EU folks who screwed up here?  They probably will get promoted but at the same time.....the trust level by individual countries will be marginal at best.  

Five Odd Things About this Astrazeneca Vaccine Chatter

 Just five things you notice about this EU 'war' with the Brit Astrazeneca company vaccine:

1.  The EU has NOT approved it for use.  As much as the EU talks about delivery issues....if it's not approved by the EU, then this is all 'hot-air'.

2.  The Brit deal had a higher cost involved than what the EU folks wrote into the deal.  But in written contract that the UK has....it says 'supply us first', and they paid for their statement.  The EU?  They were offered this opportunity and never opt'ed for it.

3.  The company could look at everything and say until you approve the vaccine.....here's your money back and you can work with us after you give us the 'green-light'.

4.  The EU has structured some regulations now....that the production center (in Belgium) for Astrazeneca can't export the vaccine out of the European region (even if the EU hasn't approved it) to countries that have approved it, and paid cash.  Once made in Europe, it must stay there, even if it's not approved.

5.  Astrazeneca costing less?  It's priced in early January between $3 and $4 a shot. As pricing goes, it's one of the cheaper Covid-vaccines existing.  

All of this heading down a path of being just anti-Brit?  For the past week, I've tried to understand the German coverage, and the EU chatter.  Until the EU folks give the 'green-light'....this is mostly chatter of immature adults, without much to stand upon. The raid into the Belgium plant?  If it's disclosed that everything is precisely how the company described it.....the EU will look fairly stupid.  If the company openly lied, then it's a whole new story.  

Germany and Covid-19: 29 Jan 2021

 1.  You've probably heard a fair amount mentioned on the British vaccine company Astrazeneca.  They had the initial success of development, and the EU latched onto them by mid-summer 2020, with a contract.  What the EU didn't grasp at the time....there would be a testing phase and refinement.  The EU showed some desire to have a massive contract, and put all of their 'betting' just on this one vaccine.  It was probably a serious management decision that they'd regret.

So this past two weeks, Astrazeneca said that the factory in Belgium is having some quality issues, and the 'big' delivery is going to be a lot less.  This got the EU all disturbed.  

This morning, via N-TV, Astrazeneca has finally had enough of the blame, and they are going to publish the contract that the EU signed.  No one is saying much but it appears that it's going to lay out some of the poor wording by the EU managers, and you might get the impression that these people weren't experts at vaccines or buying medical-type products.  More to come, I expect.  

2. The German Army had some kind of waiver for barbers/hair-dressers....that they could operate in the barracks (while all other operations throughout the country were shut-down).  Well....the Defense Minister released a statement early today....the waiver would end immediately, and no hair-cutting would be allowed. 

What happens to the hair style of the Army folks?  This will be curious to see.  Personally, I don't think any hair operations will open up until after Easter.

3.  N-TV is reporting today that German airports will receive around one billion Euro through 2021.  If you go around the Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich regions....the airports have been exceptionally hard hit.  But there is a fair amount of criticism over the deal.

4.  Some German went and built a estimate-calculator....to ask you several questions and GUESS when the earliest chance will come for you to get the vaccination.  State-by-state information is fed into this and the current trend of appointments in the states.

5.  Over at Berglisch Gladbach, a town just east of Koln....some thief walked into a local clinic and stole 5,000 FFP-2 masks.  Value?  Well....on the street, you can ask around 4 Euro for them (the ultra cheap price is around 2.50 Euro if you can find them in local grocery operations).  This guy will clear around 15k to 20k Euro off the goods.

6.  Number of Germans with a positive test of Covid-19 since day one?  2,186,823.   Number of Germans dead since day one?  55,456.  

7.  Yeah, it is being reported at four different kindergartens in the Koln region....the Brit mutant virus is identified.  More deadly than the normal Covid-19 virus?  Pretty near the same 'threat'....although on the mist-level of discussion...if the normal Covid-19 virus were rated a '5' on this scale....the Brit mutant virus is probably rated a '7'.  That's what drove the FFP-2 mask mandate.  If the virus is showing up at differing kindergartens?  Then it's pretty wide-spread in the Koln region (one would assume).  

8.  The Portuguese border with Spain completely shut-down?  Apparently occurred yesterday.

9.  Is there a fake business landscape going on.....with the government persuading companies to avoid bankruptcy paperwork until after the September national election?  

Focus picked up the discussion and talked about this perception.  For at least a month, I've read various business reports which suggest differing techniques are being used, and enough money is spread around to keep a happy-face on company existence.  

If true?  Well...you won't really know about it until after the election (September).  My humble belief is that early November will be this moment of reckoning, and several dozen well known companies (medium-sized companies) will finally lay down the paperwork.  Massive frustration will sweep Germany and whoever 'won' the election....will be stuck with a five-star mess from December 2021 through to the fall of 2022.  

All of this being hidden from the public?  I wouldn't use the word 'hidden'.  The government is simply feeding enough cash through the system....that keeps companies at the 'zombie-level' and childish hopes are geared toward something occurring out of this tactic.  Unemployment by spring of 2022?  Maybe they can hide it via differing training programs but I would imagine the true unemployment level in spring of 2022 to be near 12 percent.  All of this leading back to Covid-19 and the shut-down process.  

A Little Covid-19 Story

 This is a story I saw off SWR (SW German public TV) and I'll tell it the way that I 'saw' the act.

So this 21-year-old German guy had come over to a clinic in Wiesbaden (my local town) and was there for some type of neurosurgery situation (usually involving brain, spinal cord or nervous system work).  He had some odd symptoms, and as part of the check-in....they gave him the Covid-19 test.  Yep, sure enough....he had Covid-19.   We'll give the guy the name of 'Huns'.

'Huns' was kinda told at this point....already there for the neurosurgery event....he'd should go and do a quarantine deal.  No one says if 'Huns' understood that order, and it's suggested that he could have done the quarantine at home. The hospital says they kinda suggested this, and didn't order him.   Maybe it wasn't blunt enough.....maybe he just had some brain issues which damaged the understanding of the quarantine.  

'Huns' in this case....left the clinic.

'Huns' gets on a bus and rides to mid-town Wiesbaden....symptoms and all...mask on.  There, he boards another bus or train, and he ends over to Mainz, roughly five miles away.

The number of folks that he might have dumped Covid-19 over to?  Well....one might imagine a minimum of ten folks.

So 'Huns' gets to the Mainz train-station.  He picks up some food items at the grocery shop at the station.  He is wearing a mask....at least on the positive side, and there is limited contact with people (this is after 9 PM).

With the groceries in hand...he approaches a train station security guy and is asking about where he could get some medical help....because he had Covid-19.  

This probably freaked the guard out a pretty good bit.   He calls the Mainz police, and they rush in with full toxic gear suits on.

A brief gentle interrogation occurs now....'Hans' is explaining his story...his path of travel....the grocery-shop stop, etc.

Naturally, decontaminating has to occur at the grocery shop and folks are a bit freaked out.

'Hans'?  He ends up at the Mainz hospital now....in a controlled quarantine deal.

Charges?  The news folks hint that the police are filing some paperwork, and there's going to be some court-meeting a month or two down the line....for 'Hans' to explain his actions.  

Humble guess?  There's likely to be a thousand Euro-plus fine out of this deal....he actually crossed through both Hessen and Rhineland Pfalz, so both could pass judgement over him.

If I were 'Huns'....I'd suggest I was all doped up and just not in any frame of mind.  Otherwise, this was a pretty stupid random act (with the fine involved).

The moral of this story?  Basically, when the nurse pulls up the Covid test results and says 'positive'....you need to think intently....here I am....what is the most direct path back home, and how will I get there?  The last thing you want to do....is ask the cops about how to resolve your path home.  

The Problem With History

 About once or twice a year, I'll read some piece (generally always written by an American with zero knowledge of Germany in the 1920s, the Treaty of Versailles to end WW I, the Weimar Republic, and the Nazis) which goes to suggest somehow (some way)....Hitler could have been easily stopped if German police/soldiers had just done their duty and 'refused' orders.

(as you might guess, I saw this suggestion come again today)

Maybe thirty years ago....I might have been willing to sit for 30 minutes and hear the discussion or debate.  At this point, my patience runs out after 30 seconds, and exit out of the discussion or reading.  

The general problem with this discussion is that a vast number of German police were guys who'd done duty between 1914 and 1918, and were generally inclined to believe in some type of blame-action.  

It might be true that half the German public wasn't buying into the 1929 to 1932 surge of the Nazi Party....but the alternate path with the Communist Party or the SPD Party....wasn't exactly selling well either.

As for the refusing orders?  People from this 1900s to 1940s era....weren't exactly the type to refuse orders (I'm not talking about just Germans....it goes across the board).  

The amount of history understanding from people?  Ninety-nine percent of Americans have virtually no real grasp of the era of 1900 to the initial days of WW  II.  It's not covered much in high school (in some cases, it amount to three pages of the book and mostly centers on the depression period starting in 1929), and marginally covered in college classes.   

So people get a brief introduction via some movie, and maybe a bit of text....which doesn't dig into topics.  The rest? They just fill in with 'fake-history' and run off with the rest.  

Armored Car Robbery?

 It's a bit odd and extremely rare, but reported this afternoon in the Frankfurt area.

Reported via HR (our public TV)....the armored vehicle was stopped and robbed while at a bank unit at Bergen-Enkheim.  If you drew a line straight east from Frankfurt to Hanau.....it's in the middle of the range.  

A shot or two were fired by the guys (seems like two with a get-away driver).  Their escape vehicle?  Found an hour or so later....abandoned and burned.

No police comment on the amount taken.  

How This German (Really Hessen) Vaccination Priority Deal Works

 There are basically four levels of vaccination priority (at least via the program here in my state of Hessen).

1.  Level One:

- Folks over 80.

- Folks in retirement/care facilities (includes both employees and residents) 

- Employees hired for outpatient care services 

- Any medical folks with a very high risk of exposure to Covid-19

- Any medical person who has nothing to do with Covid patients but just likely to get it.

2.  Level Two:

- Folks over 70 year old.

- Anyone at risk of a severe infection.

- Asylum seekers/shelter-people (homeless)

- The non-medical support folks at hospitals.

3.  Level Three: 

- People over 60 years old

- Folk with chronic pre-existing illnesses

- Court people, police, firemen, police, prison officials/guards, German military, etc.

- Teachers/professors.

- Meat-packing company personnel, seasonal workers.

- Food retail folks.

- Food supply, water maintenance, energy supply, garbage pick-up folks, telecommunication people.

4.  Level Four

- Everyone else.

Getting to level four folks?  I personally doubt that they get the green light until probably July timeframe at the earliest.  A lot depends on the supply of the vaccine, and how many kinda refuse their situation in the 'line'.

Housing Story

 It's one of those ideas you put on a table for discussion, and you get a hundred different opinions.

So, up in Hamburg....the city-state government made a decision about a year ago. There is a district (the Nord region of town) where you can construct various buildings or multi-family homes, but you cannot get authorization to build a single-family home.

Focus did a good piece and covered the bulk of the story

This is a joint effort of the SPD-Green-Linke Party government there.

The driving logic here?  It goes to three key elements. First, apartment buildings hold more people per square meter of ground space. Second, a forty apartment building cost less to construct than forty separate homes.  Third, there's only x-amount of land, and the drive for single-family homes drives up speculation more than anything else.

My general view?  If you said some huge area or neighborhood is forbidden for single-family homes.....the single-family homes that are already there....go up in a massive way.  The journalists didn't go out to research that fact, but it wouldn't shock me if single-family homes went up by 10-to-15 percent in just one single year.  

More folks opting for living outside of the Hamburg 'zone'?  More than likely.  If you gazed at a map, via a subway ride, you could be in the Schleswig-Holstein state in a matter of 30 minutes.  The Mecklenburg state?  Add another 15 to be right at the border.  My humble guess is that both Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg saw a uptick for single-family construction, and they don't mind (they have the space). 

The Greens and liberal-minded folks may be patting themselves on the back....that they forced regular people to accept apartment living or multi-family homes, but it's a false reality, if you ask me.  

Polling For Three State Elections

 If you look at polling presently, for the three state elections (the Pfalz and Baden-Wurttemberg for 15 March, and Saxony-Anhalt for 6 June)....it looks this way for the parties.

For the Pfalz, the SPD ought to win with a mid-30s number, followed by the CDU with a low-30s number.  The AfD?  Near 12 percent.  The Greens and FDP will follow at the end with marginally 5-percent each.  The coalition deal?  The SPD ought to get something rigged with the CDU as a junior partner.  No shockers here.

For Baden-Wurttemberg?  The Greens ought to get near 30-percent for a win.  The CDU will follow with some high 20's number.  The AfD will corner around 15-percent of the vote, with the SPD a couple of points behind them.  The FDP, near 7-to-8 percent.  Again, no real shocker.

So we get to the Saxony-Anhalt race.   The CDU ought to win, with near 30-percent, with the AfD near the mid-20s, and in third place....the Linke Party with near 16-percent.  The SPD does lousy with 10-percent, and the Greens near 8-percent.  No real mention of the FDP.  If there is a shocker, its that the AfD will do very well in the state and come near a win.

The numbers?  All based off  a polling situation for SWR (public TV for the SW part of Germany).  

If all three occur as predicted.....there's not a lot to get the news media hyped-up or worried over serious changes for the September national election.  If the Greens lost in Baden-Wurttemberg (2nd place finish), or the AfD won the Saxony-Anhalt race (first place).....then you'd see some worried folks for Septembers race.  

Covid-19 and the Driver's License Story

 It's one of those peculiar topics that no one has discussed much in Germany, and it was up today by RBB (the public TV folks in Berlin-City): getting your license during Covid times.

For those who didn't know....getting a drivers license means you go down to a professional trainer office....signing up....doing in-class training, and then having around twenty-odd trips driving a car under a trainer.  At the end, you'd be tested, and get your license.  Most Germans will tell you that it's fairly stressful, and not that easy.

Well....RBB told the story of how things work in the Covid-era.  For several months now....the schools have been mostly shut-down.  Unless you were going for a cab-driver license, chauffer license, or freight-vehicle license.....nothing is going on.  The trainers?  All on short-time work and marginally making any real money.

The current rumor.....they will open around mid-Feb.  

Backing up the student list?  No doubt.  The odds of this Feb opening?  I'd probably give it less than a 30-percent chance.  

What this means if it's backed up to Easter?  You'd have tens of thousands of Germans on some long list who'd like to wrap up their license in 2021, and probably challenged a great deal in terms of getting open spots on the schedule.

Housing Program

 Last night, off WDR (public TV for the NW of Germany), I sat and watched 'Reset'....a documentary news piece on housing in Germany.  It was a fairly interesting piece and I'd recommend a viewing (45 minutes long).

So early on in the documentary....the journalist goes to Frankfurt and meets up with two local retired Germans.  They have this hobby....looking at unused housing/apartments in Frankfurt.

The two old guys have found around fifty-odd apartment buildings....some small (maybe ten apartments in the structure) and some large (maybe forty apartments in the structure).  They had a map laid out with pins to identify the locations across the city. 

All of these buildings sit....unused.  No occupants.  Most all are in decent condition....maybe a bit of paint would be required, but that's it.  

You can figure around a thousand or more apartments that ought to be in use....yet they sit empty.

The two old guys went to the city....asking about the ownership.  Oddly, they all lead back to one single guy.  He owns all of them.  Names aren't discussed and no one is suggesting anything corrupt or illegal.

The appearance?  It would appear in some odd way that this person or syndicate bought the apartment structures, and have a long-term strategy of sitting on them for a decade, then renovate to some degree, and sell them perhaps as condos.  Illegal?  No.  But it just contributes more to the housing shortage. 

Frankfurt, for those who aren't aware....is in the midst of a housing crisis, and just about anything being built....is strictly for condo sales, and you'd easily be discussing 400k Euro ($500k US dollars).  If you want to live in the city...it has a serious price-tag involved, and rentals are decreasing yearly.

It's an interesting video report, and I'd strongly recommend it (all in German though). 

Draft Idea: New Entry Ban

 For the big Merkel-Premier-Presidents meeting next week....the chatter is that a serious idea will be put on the table....cutting flight activity, railway travel beyond the border, and autobahn entry.

So the idea is this....if you are designated as a serious Covid-19 country...that'll end up with a flight ban (no entering or flying out of Germany).  

Affecting neighbors?  Right now, the discussion is heading that way.  The countries so far mentioned: UK, Portugal, South Africa, and Brazil.  The next group after that....probably coming a week or two later?  Netherlands and Denmark.

The odds that this will extend further in the month of February?  It's anyone's humble guess.  

You'd have to deploy either more police or German Army personnel to the border regions if you wanted to shut down roads/entry points.  My best guess is that truckers would continue to have entry/exit permission.  

Air Freight isn't mentioned much...it seems to be more toward cutting passenger traffic.

This ending in the spring?    No one has any idea where this starts, or where this ends....that's the amusing part of the discussion.  

Minimalism Chatter

 Germans tend to 'worry' or criticize upon things....that a lot of people wouldn't ever think about.

Last year, I sat and watched a news documentary piece which talked to a commonly perceived problem....Germans having too much.  They refer to people who have thirty t-shirts in their closet, and only twelve of them worn once or twice a month.  Or they talk about the forty skirts in the closet....which two are only worn once a year. 

The trend?  It's usually called minimalism.  N-TV did a short update yesterday....talking about the trend.  They went back a hundred years ago (1920) and suggest that most people had a 180 pieces of personal property (meaning clothing, knives, pairs of socks, shoes, etc).  Today, it's figured that people now have around 10,000 items of personal property.

I sat and thought about the numbers....if you counted up screw-drivers, hammers, software packages, stuff I've collected over sixty years.....yeah, I've probably got 10,000-plus items in my possession. 

Just in the car trunk itself, there's probably sixteen items, for emergency situations. 

Book-wise, I have a collection of 200 books. 

Shoes and boots?  I have probably near twelve pair of shoes and three pair of boots.  Yes, I still have a 20-year old pair of military combat boots that I've never parted with.  I have a pair of extreme heavy-duty winter boots that I was issued via the Air Force in 1995, and sits in the basement.....never worn.  We just haven't had that kind of winter....ever.  

In the flashlight corner, I probably have seven different types of flashlights....some of them used at best once a year, for particular problems...when you crawl into a tunnel-like area.

Am I bothered by the German perception of minimalism?  No.  Their chief aim?  They like to convince a whole society of downsizing by seventy-five percent and cease all the evil stuff of spending money on crazy capitalism stuff.  I just don't see people buying off on this fantasy.  

Total Absolute Shutdown?

 This continued chatter over halting all air-traffic into Germany?  There's to be some meeting next week, and the topic will come up.  ARD (public TV, Channel One) tossed the topic out there and discussed part of this situation.

Where this is going?  The viral experts are now in fear that more variants of the Covid-19 virus will enter the country.  The problem here....it goes to involve railway services and the autobahns.

Total shutdown?  It's hard to imagine that they'd reach this level of agreement, with all sixteen states.

If they just said air-freight only entering for a couple of weeks?  Even that wouldn't really stop the potential of more variants entering...as you'd have air-crews staying at local hotels.

If they shut down the exit/enter capability of trains?  You could probably do this for a month, but you'd still have to allow freight trains to enter Germany, or exit the country.

Autobahns?  Same story.  Freight has to enter and exit. 

Would people just accept this?  Right now....for a month, probably.  

Would it hurt the drug dealers?  That's a curious situation to bring up.  There's a fair amount of traffic from Czech into Germany, and it's likely to disrupt drug trafficking to some degree.

This going on for two or three months?  It'd be crazy to imagine a shutdown like that and people accepting it as a normal thing. 

Footnote: Late today, Israel announced a flight halt (passenger planes only).

Germany and Covid-19: 27 Jan 2021

 1.  Curious piece off Focus news this morning, some science folks have examined the mutant virus (like the Brit one), and found that when talking about the vaccination business....it is effective with the current 'design'....HOWEVER, they are now talking about a third shot (the current plan is shot number one, wait three to four weeks, and get shot two).  Based on commentary, there's still probably another couple of months of testing to occur before they mandate this.  Making a bigger problem for the logistical chain?  Well...yeah.

2.  Discussion of cyber attacks on vaccine developmental companies?  Yes.  ARD had a piece on this discussion and there is some governmental worry about hackers now.  

3.  Calls for a Europe-wide travel ban?  N-TV picked up the discussion this morning, and it centers on the virus experts (not the politicians).  The suggestion is that too many people are crossing borders and spreading the virus (by car, train and airplane).

How would this work?  Well....only speculation upon my part....you'd turn to the railway services and just say nothing crosses borders except for freight.  Then you'd go to the airports and suggest that only in-country flights were possible.  As for the vehicle situation?  You have to allow truckers to move cargo across the continent.  How long could you mount some drastic travel ban?  Maybe for 30 days....but they might be willing to go to some harsh view and try some two-month attempt.

To be honest about it....out of the Frankfurt airport....I doubt if their schedule even meets the 15-percent point of what was going on in 2019.  If you said only in-country flights....it'd probably add up to 40 flights a day in Frankfurt.  

4.  I noticed this morning off the news via N-TV....a fair discussion had started up over the mandated wear of the FFP-2 mask.  The experts all agree....it's the best mask for the situation....IF WORN PROPERLY.  

The mask (I have two that I paid a ridiculous amount of money for)....require a 'seal' of sorts.  If you wear them wrong....they are of zero value.  If you walk around, I'd suggest more than forty-percent of people have them on in a crappy way and there is no seal.  So all this mandating business....probably has zero value.

5.  All this chatter over the Astrazeneca vaccine from the EU?

I'll reference this commentary from N-TV, but there are tons of news sites talking about the matter.

In simple terms....way back in the spring/summer of 2020....the Astrazeneca folks got the EU's attention, and most everything that the EU was signed up on contracts for....for the 'good' of all EU members....was put on Astrazeneca.  

In a matter like this....most business-minded folks would have gone to the top three producers, and spread the responsibility around....expecting one of the three to screw up and at least you lessened the pain.  Well...the EU screwed up.

The EU would now like Astrazeneca folks to explain the schedule.  Under what they knew in December....the production folks would deliver around 80-million doses in March 2022.  In the past week, Astrazeneca said 'no'....the best they can now do is 31-million (end of March).

6.  Finally, today (Wed), is the start of year two of the virus in Germany.  There's no parties, bottles of Champaign, or fests for the situation.  Most Germans are coming to the belief that nothing much will improve over the next six months, and economically....it's a fairly harsh year ahead. 

Discussing President of Germany

 In February of 2022, the President of Germany (Frank-Walter Steinmeier) would come to the end of his five-year period.  He would be either reconfirmed, or the Bundestag would recommend another person for the post.  I should note here, the general public does not have a vote in this matter...it's entirely handled by the Bundestag itself.

Any discussion right now over this matter?  None.

It's mostly a ceremonial position, where he can meet heads of state and not bicker in the matters of laws being set.

How things look presently?  He's 65 and in decent health...so it's not unreasonable that they'd meet and reconfirm the guy for another five-year period.

Would the election in September set the stage for a change?  Maybe.  Steinmeier is a SPD guy, and the party had a lot of cards on the table to get the votes lined up.  

How things look for September's election?  I don't see the SPD Party getting much past 14-percent of the vote.  The Green Party, in the past two years....has energized itself, and if Annalena Baerbock were the Chancellor candidate for the party, I think they might be able to swing past 20-percent on votes....maybe even near 25-percent.  

In this scenario, I suspect the Greens would swing some deal (probably as the coalition partner) and push one of the key older members (maybe Claudia Roth) as the candidate for the President's job.  

Does it matter in any sort of way?  Generally, no.  It's one of those jobs where you make around twenty-five speeches a year, attend thirty-odd funerals, condemn Nazis at least five or six times, and avoid confrontational situations.  The person is supposed to be an intellectual of sorts (like a retired university professor) and mostly stay out of the spotlight.  

What you can anticipate....about a month after the election, as the coalition is put together....this will be one of the top ten subjects discussed.  One party will get the nod to select someone for the President's job, and lose out on a Minister's post as part of some deal.  

Knife Attack Story

 At some point this morning (9 AM, Tuesday), over in Frankfurt at the Bahnhof-quarter (the district in front and to the sides of the train station)....a guy just started attacking locals with a knife (at random).

Some got some pretty nasty cuts....some less so.  HR (our public TV outlet covered the basic story).

The police eventually came to 'control' the guy.

The district?  Well....over the past twenty years, this neighborhood has seriously changed, and I'd describe it as a place where you'd exit the station rather quickly and proceed on....through the needles on the ground, the dealers, and the junkies in various stages.  

If you were stationed around Frankfurt in the 1970s/1980s....this was an interesting point to show up....McDonalds and Burger King were there, and the show-piece of Frankfurt (the station itself) stood there for you to admire.  You could walk from there into the subway area in a matter of minutes, or exit to walk to the downtown shopping district in twenty minutes.

If you walk around the interior of the station now....there's at least two police patrols always roaming, and out in front....for probably half the day, there's a two-man patrol roaming to note problems.

This guy with the knife?  Probably a junkie on some heroin trip and just earned himself a one-year stay in some prison system....to dry-up and get off the drugs. 

The trust in walking anywhere around the Bahnhof-quarter?  Even in the subway passages under the station....you need to keep moving and view everything in the landscape with a suspicious 'eye'.  

Looking at Netflix in Germany and It's Affect

 As of the 2nd quarter of 2020 (into the heart of Covid-19)....Netflix had around 8.2-million subscribers in Germany....out of a 83-million total population).  That's roughly a 15-percent growth over the previous year.  

Numbers?  From Comparitech.

The present numbers going into 2021?  I would imagine it's fairly close to 9-million.

Hurting the public TV sector and the commercial networks in Germany?  Well....yeah.

If you asked most younger Germans (say between 15 and 25 years old)....they would admit that they rarely if ever....watch public TV, and commercial TV usage is on the decline.  

Finding Germans over the age of fifty who have a subscription?  It's probably more of a rare thing.

I've had a subscription now for two years and would readily admit that I probably view ten hours a week of TV shows/movies, and more than half are NOT US products.  

Yeah, Netflix has been smart and acquired European and Asian products, inserting the German/English text, and I've been shocked over the quality there.  

Hurting the advertising profit for German commercial TV?  No one says much, and there's only speculation.  For the public TV management folks, there's serious worry about the next decade and how younger viewers will force the TV tax discussion to be painful (perhaps even cutting it by a massive amount).

Adding to this discussion....Sky and Amazon are getting heavily into this, along with a couple of other streaming video sites.

A decade in the future?  I just don't see public TV surviving in its current state, and the German commercial TV networks are probably going to merge into a lesser number to survive. 

Covid-19 Test-At-Home Kits?

 Well....public TV (ARD, Channel One) is lightly discussing the topic today.

So to the five basic facts:

1.  This would be a 'quick' test that you'd buy in a pharmacy....probably starting around the last day or two of January.

2.  Cost?  Still being discussed but the general chatter is between 10 and 15 Euro.  Won't surprise me if the original sales price is 14.99 Euro per kit.  

3.  Who'd pay for it?  You, the consumer.  But there is chatter that the government might hand you a 'coupon' or voucher.  Maybe it's for one free one per month....maybe it's a 5-Euro off coupon for one per month. There seems to be a fair amount of debate how much they'd spend for the consumer deal.

4.  A quick test usually takes 15-to-20 minutes.

5.  If you examined the false-positive nature of these quick tests....they range from 80-percent to 95-percent.  That means you could take the test several times in a day, and show a positive at least once.

I reviewed this story a fair amount.  It is with good intentions that the Health Ministry is pushing for the open use/sale to occur.

But in some ways....it just opens up more chaos and stress.  Some folks buying a ten-package test kit....spending 129 Euro?  Quiet possible.  If they had the money, they might buy a ten-package kit every single month.

The reliability angle to this product?  On my own personal level....95-percent is pretty 'trusting'.  Once you get to 80-percent....my trust level drops a good bit.

The odds that you might discover that after drinking some cinnamon-flavored coffee or some weird yogurt drink....you always get a false-positive?  I think in a couple of months, we'd find various conditions that would create the false-positive problem, or even the false-negative issue, and question the products available.  

My German wife buying into this test kit stuff?  The 'queen-of-frugality'?  Never.  If I bought a couple of these...I'd have to hide in the secret stash area of the basement, with the beef jerky, Snickers, and other forbidden household items.  She'd just tell me in blunt German....when you got it....you got it.  

Mallorca Story

 For decades, Germans (and Brits) have gathered in Mallorca (the isle of Spain about 200 km off the coast of Barcelona).  

What developed here, from the 1960s on....was a party-like atmosphere where Germans (and Brits) would come for roughly seven months out of the year, party in a wild sort of way, drink excessively (even more so than they would at home), and be loud-and-obnoxious.  

Most Germans would tell you that the atmosphere went through various stages, and the local Spaniards were hyped up through the 1990s to milk every single 'dime' out of the visiting Germans.  

Police through the years would enforce some discipline, but they knew that the capital flow of cash was critical for the future of the island.

I would suggest that between 2000 and 2010....something happened.  Too many bars....too many drunk Germans....too much greed.

In the past decade, local Spaniards have been calling for 'Jesus-moment' (what I'd call a dressing-down of party-crazed Germans.  

So it happened this week.

A law was passed, called Balearic Agenda 2030. 

It reflects mostly upon tourism, or the dissolving of tourism.

Booze flat rates?  Gone, at least in terms of all-inclusive vacation packages that hotels would offer.

The package is now limited to 3 alcoholic drinks provided, per day. Anything beyond that....has a price attached at the hotel bar.

Now....most Germans would readily agree....the flat rate business usually mean cheap NON-premium (I mean seriously non-premium) booze.  

I had this open-bar deal at a Cyprus hotel about a decade ago....a whole week with the cocktails being free all day long.  It was probably a fairly cheap booze used with maybe 5-percent alcohol in the one-shot drink.  It was fairly worthless in my humble opinion.  You could have drunk fifteen cocktails in a six-hour period and marginally reached any level of inebriation.  

Happy hour in Mallorca?  Going away entirely.

Hefty fines for any hotel violating the rule?  They say up to 600k Euro could be the fine on the hotel operations.

Crazy stunts where Germans got drunk and jumped from the balcony window in a pool?  Some Germans would suggest that this occurred a thousand times a day across Mallorca in the summer months.  Well...it's going to be forbidden.  You violate the rule.....the hotel can dump you out of the room.  Fines are being set up for this game as well.  

The comical side of this change?  They wrote this waiver into the system....if you held political meetings or wedding celebrations with at least 20 guests....the booze rules were relaxed in various ways.

What'll happen now?  

Literally thousands of Germans have permanently moved to Mallorca and run various clubs, pubs, restaurants, and hotels.  Everyone of them will view the change in a negative way, and prepare to sell their operation.  The first in....will be lucky....the ones waiting until the end of 2021 will be grumbling at the lack of interest.

I'll predict by summer of 2023....at least half of the business that the island did....will be gone, and a third of the hotels will be in some form of complete shut-down.  They can blame Covid-19 to some degree, but the law being implemented will be the final part of this story.

Where the rowdy Germans go next?  It wouldn't shock me if Romania and Bulgaria got the bulk of this wild-crazy party business and they emerge in 2024 with the doubling or tripling of German guests.  

Spain will be spending hundreds of millions of Euro in 2024/2025....to get guests back and find that the interest is no longer there.  

Hair-Cutting Illegal Presently?

 Well....yes.  Since early November.

This topic got brought up via NDR (regional public news from the NW of Germany).

We are up to around 80-odd days where beauty-shops and barber-shops have been shutdown.

What the NDR journalists dug up....via the union folks for hair-cutters....a fair amount of black-market business is being conducted.

Mobile hair-cutting operations are now running in various areas....strictly illegal of course.

Chief reason?  Well....it goes to customers asking for the service, and the extremely low amount of state-aid provided to the hair-cutter crowd.

It reached a stage this week....that the state guild association up in Schleswig-Holstein (way far northern state of Germany) started sending posters out to shut-down hairdressing/barber shops suggesting that people NOT be engaged in illegal hair activities. 

I know....you probably are amused and grinning over this waste of time and effort.....asking if the shops are closed down....why any idiot would put up the crazy poster?

Relief coming in February?  There seems to be some element of the German population who believes that things will open up at that point.  I have my doubts and think it's more likely to stay closed to Easter (4 April), and approximately one-quarter of the German population will have at least two illegal hair-cuts between early December and Easter.  

The rest of Germany?  Those who were legal (like myself) and avoided illegal hair-cuts?  Well...by mid-April when they probably reopen, it'll be impossible to get a hair-cut until mid-May, and it'll be seven months of zero hair-cuts, and with self-cutting....my hair style will be pretty crappy.  

Public Forum Chatter

 Last night, German public TV (ARD, Channel One) ran one of it's more-noted public forums....'Hart Aber Fair' (Hard But Fair).....around 9 PM.  Topic?  Public feelings in the middle of the crisis of Covid-19.  It came to an interesting group assembled (always the positive of this show).

The group?  A hairdresser, journalist, a mental health doctor, a virus-doctor, and a politician.  

Lot of points thrown out there, but at the end....the one key point was....'there is no light at the end of this tunnel'. In simple terms....the tunnel just continues on, and on, and on.

Wednesday will be the start of the second year.  On the positive side....maybe by September, everyone who wanted the vaccination (probably in the 80-to-90 percent range) will have gotten it. Will the crisis just end at that point?  No one that I've seen in the past couple of months really suggests that.  If they do share a positive position, it's that the death rate will spiral downward (no one uses numbers but you get the impression that deaths ought to be a lot less).  

The people who walked around the vaccination option?  The infection rate and death rate will probably continue 'as is'.  Eventually in 2023, I expect a quarter of the German population to be fairly frustrated with these non-vaccination types, and question sick-leave and significant life requirements for them.  

Maybe by some point in 2023, you might actually go for a 24-hour period on German public TV without the word 'Covid-19' being mentioned.  My humble guess is for the next 500-odd days....it'll still be uttered a minimum of twenty times daily off ARD daily news (from 5 PM to 10:45 PM).  You will probably still see 10 'jabs' nightly of the vaccine shot into some guy's arm, and feel some form of nausea for 30 seconds after each 8-second segment.  

The last thing you could take out of the chatter from the show?  From a mental-health standpoint, all elements of happiness has been drained-out.  From the viewpoint of kids....to the isolation that senior citizens feel.  

It's a fairly barren landscape for optimism, and it not likely to improve over the next couple of months.  

Germany and Covid-19: 26 Jan 2021

 1.  For the record, this is the 365th day of Covid-19 being in Germany.  I doubt if anyone will ever make tomorrow a holiday, but it'll be openly discussed how the first year went, and ended.

2.  Out of Hanau, police were called on a party (strictly forbidden by Covid ban rules).  What they describe?

DJ operation, booze in the open (another ban rule), two escort ladies, 35 guests, slot machines, and set in an apartment.  I tried to imagine 35-odd folks in my apartment (74 sq meters)....probably wouldn't work.  Probably a 100 sq meter apartment.

Fines?  Oh yeah....big-time.

3.  Offenbach admitted that they made near half-a-million Euro since day one of the Covid-bans.....on fines.  Just on people without masks.....almost 80k Euro.

4.  Fake vaccination appointment calls?  Well....our public TV folks (HR) had a note about this....occurring in the Offenbach area.  It was mostly to older Germans, and you got the impression that they were angling for banking information. 

5.  Riots reported for past couple of days in the Netherlands, various cities.  Police being pushed to the limit.  Fires reported, cars set on fire, shops being looted.  Most of this anger is directed at the new curfew (9 PM to 4:30 AM).  Curfew fine?  95 Euro.....if caught.

6.  Story emerging (seen via N-TV), that a Hanover woman had Covid-19 a few weeks ago....then getting over it.  Then second episode of Covid-19 started up.  

Newer version?  The Brit mutant version?  Yeah.

So here's the bigger worry.....she has some connection to child-care operations. 

No immunity from regular Covid to Brit-Covid?  This will require some serious research and explanations.  

7.  Total dead since day?  52,640.  473 over past twenty-four hours. Massive bulk of these have occurred have been since mid-September.  

Someone Asked How Germans Felt

 A poll was done....asking Germans how they felt the 'management' of the government (meaning the federal, state and local folks) over the Covid-19 business.

54-percent of Germans said either 'crappy' or 'extremely crappy' (my translations or definitions). 

Going into an election year, this would probably not be positive news to view or reflect upon.

I won't call it mismanagement or incompetence.  To some degree....managers or leaders were doing the best with the limited amount of background or training in this area.  You'd have x-problem come up, and ten solutions thrown up on the white-board....with the team selecting their gut-feeling choice.

This latest round with the mask business....admitting that for almost 10 months, they let just about any mask be 'approved' for use?  Then suddenly, they reflect upon the options and throw out the cloth masks entirely....which is probably what 80-percent of people had in their jacket or purse?  Then you do this in such a hurry....that few of any pharmacy operations or grocery stores have the mask?  Then you find a shop who will sell you the now-approved mask.....but instead of 1.20 Euro....you get screwed for 4.50 Euro?

The 15 km range limit in some communities with high rates of Covid-19?  No science can prove anything over the limit, and cops feel silly asking you on the street where you live and then try to figure if you went 15.5 km and thus violated the ban rule?

The problem here?  You can't find one guy or group to fire.  

If you could find that individual....folks would start to get politically charged up and demand some reasonable rules.

What likely occurs as the state elections occur, and the September national election occurs?  I suspect the main two parties are going to be damaged in some way....both losing five points each.  

Theft Story

 There's not a day that passes in Germany where I don't go through the news and come upon a weird robbery of sorts and it makes no sense.

Today, looking over events of the weekend.....this theft episode comes up from the Pfalz (Idar-Oberstein).

What they took?  Roughly 2.5 tons of road-salt, from the middle of town.

It took a fair amount of effort (I assume it was all in bags) and required either a moving van or truck.

Likely end-result?  I would assume they have someone with a shop who will pay 30-percent of the real value of the theft, and sell it out of the back of their shop.

But you just look at this....road salt?  

Natural Gas Project Continues On

 Over the past couple of months, Germans (especially politicians) have been hyped up over the arrival of President Biden, and getting rid of all these 'problems' with President Trump.

Well....the new reality has hit.  Some of these Trump-burdens simply continue on, and the shock is now kind of apparent.

Example?  The Nord-Stream II project....the natural gas pipeline that was being laid across the Baltic from the St Petersburg area, and would touch NE Germany.  Trump had issues with this, and had sanctions laid out for company that participated.  Naturally, this infuriated the Germans.  The policy delayed the last 20-percent of the entire project.  

Some reference material here.  German companies buy around 35-percenet of the country's natural gas from the Russians.....from a pipeline that has existed for around 50 years.  The negative on this pipeline....it runs across the Ukraine and has always had political consequences tied into it's use (selling at reduced rates to the Ukraine for example).  Trump's basic idea was that he was wanting the Germans to buy 'some' natural gas from the US.  No one ever suggested numbers and without a pipeline....it'd have to come via gas-freighters.  

The Germans felt the US threat would evaporate with Biden.  Well....it didn't happen.  He is apparently continuing the threat, but for a different reason....Navalny (the Russian attempting to take down Putin).  ARD public TV news does a good explanation on this and it's worth a read. 

The reaction by the one company left running the project?  Full speed ahead.  You have to remember that this was never a country-to-country project.....it was a business-to-business project.  Once completed and turned on....there's billions to be made each year.  

The likely nature that more Trump issues will simply slide over and become Biden issues?  You just simply don't know.  For the Germans, it's some sad part about the fantasy that they consumed for four years....that maybe Trump and Biden are reading off the same basic script, with differing reasons.  

This New Merz Scenario

 Last week, the CDU Party wrapped up it's party-chief selection (this is not the Chancellor candidate selection deal, but usually...the party-chief ends up as the Chancellor candidate in elections).  Friedrich Merz was NOT selected.  Most folks would have said he had the better odds back in October, but the party meeting was cancelled because of Covid-19 worries.  So in the end, the motivation went toward the Merkel-supported guy....Armin Laschet.

Drama following this selection?  Well, most people who vote CDU (conservative type folks)....have indicated that it's time for 'change' (meaning the Merkel era needs to end).  Laschet's chatter at this point?  He mostly says he'll keep the path geared toward the Merkel agenda....changing literally nothing.

Merz came out of the meeting and suggested that the party needed to bring him in as the Economics Minister....which Merkel more or less laughed over that suggestion.

So the magazine Focus picked up this whole discussion, and their political writer.....Rainer Zitelmann....discusses this weird scenario over Merz and the election. Zitelmann writes out this scripted idea that Merz really isn't going to get any path ahead in the CDU....not as the Chancellor candidate or as a minister.  The general public sees Merz as a strong character for the economic woes that Covid-19 has brought to Germany's doorstep.

The scenario?  Have Merz quit the CDU Party....walk across the room to the FDP Party, and be a co-chairman of their leadership.....then run as the Chancellor candidate for the FDP.

First, how rare is that people change parties in Germany?  It just never happens.  You might have one or two people per decade who exit a party and enter a second party.  Normally, they aren't big-names.  

Second, for public attention.....just how well does Merz debate and would there be any gained points for the FDP?  If you look at the group now assembled (considering the CDU, Greens, SPD, etc)....Merz holds a 5-star edge when talking about the economy and rebuilding commerce.  

Presently, the FDP is shown in the polls at the 8-percent level.  With Merz as their candidate?  It's only wild speculation on my part, but I think they could dislodge another 10 points off the CDU.  I would suggest they'd come fairly close to 18-percent on the national voting in September.

What this does?  For the CDU to lose ten points....means they come down a notch, and it's now possible that the Greens win the election (if their current trend holds).

The possibility that the Merz ticket could take votes off the AfD Party and the SPD folks?  Maybe there's another five points from these two as well....which would put them near 23-percent.  In this scenario of mine, the Greens would be kinda stuck....either they partner with a highly weakened CDU Party, or with the FDP folks. 

So the question here goes to the feelings of Merz....would he dump his political party?  It's totally an unknown.

On the German speculation scale....what Zitelmann lays out...is probably one of the wildest ideas of the past twenty years in terms of politics.  

Propaganda Story

Several times each year....I point out propaganda-value stories (some German, some Brit, some American, some French) and how its done in a way to manipulate people into thinking something. 

Focus today, brought up this Austrian story, which  is worth a moment of reviewing.

There's this Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty which has been pushed around the globe, with a small number of European countries who signed up.  Austria itself....signed the document.

Germany, I should note....has NOT signed the document.

What the treaty basically says is that you will not have nuke weapons in your possession, and have no intention of ever going this direction. Nuke power?  Well....that's not an issue contained in the treaty.

I should note here....France has not signed the treaty...nor has Italy....nor has Spain....nor has Belgium.  

So the Foreign Ministry of Austria did something curious.  They paid someone to go and produce a video, which shows a simulated atomic bomb hit on Vienna.

What they suggested....just in their scenario....roughly a quarter million Vienna folks dead and half-a-million wounded.

This went out into the public arena....via social media mostly.  

Positive view?  Well...a number of folks felt it was pure propaganda.  Even the mayor came to have a harsh amount of criticism over the product.

The gentle push by the Foreign Ministry?  I would suggest that they wanted to push Germany a bit and suggest that by going the Austrian way.....we'd all work to make the world a safer place. 

The general problem is that you'd get a generally naïve group of local residents viewing the video, and thinking that Vienna is thirty-two minutes away from annihilation. You'd go and ask the guy/gal....who exactly is going to nuke you?  They'd mostly answer 'well, those folks....the ones with the nuke bombs'.  You'd counter this and ask...'you mean the Swiss, who didn't sign the treaty'?  

The guy/gal would be aggravated because you just didn't perceive the threat correctly.  But you'd continue...'you mean the Finns or the Norway folks who didn't sign the treaty'?

Finally, you'd go to the heart of the discussion....asking the Vienna person....who exactly is the enemy of Austria?

There would be this fairly long pause at this point.  If the guy had enough booze or enough drugs in their system....they might utter 'Nazis', but generally....they are stuck there in this silly discussion with no real worry in life.

Then you'd ask them to list out their top three-hundred worries in life.  

Mostly, they'd talk about winter storms, escalating fuel prices, their wife having an affair, their dog advancing in age, their daughter dating some gypsy guy from Bulgaria, sales taxes going up, too many people living beyond their means, too many people using non-recyclable coffee cups, dog crap on their sidewalk, public TV showing too many vaccination episodes where the needle is inserted into the guy, too many zombie movies on TV, circuses disappearing from the landscape, too many Vienna women showing boobies, too many retired guys getting drunk in the park, too many Chinese tourists in Vienna, their cousin Ernest who flipped from being 100-percent gay to 100-percent straight, too much sugar in sodas, and Russian mafia types who seem to own a third of the bars in Vienna now. 

Yeah, that nuke worry thing probably wouldn't fit into their truly top three-hundred problems.

So you'd end this discussion with the guy....asking what Vienna did to get simulated nuked?  Maybe two or three minutes would pass, and they'd finally say that they hadn't really thought about that end of the scenario.  

Propaganda is generally designed to make you think something....which is probably 90-to-100 percent not true.  It'll be so crazy....that your common sense 'meter' will just sit there in overload, and not be able to ask real questions about the nature of the story told.

Now, if I were running the Vienna-propaganda system....I'd go and suggest that 12-foot long Boas have been seen in the subway system, and swallowed up some 12-year-old kid last week.  Then I'd show a picture of a Thai Boa looking awful full, and push this out via social media.  I'd probably have 10k Vienna folks all hyped-up in less than a week....over a fake Boa story.  I also have a mad-crazy Nazi scientist fake story, which probably would work just as well. 

A Soccer Story

 Maybe in an average year, I'll watch three to five soccer games on TV....usually with the Munich team playing.  I'm not anti-soccer....I'm just not that enthusiastic about the sport.

This week, we had an usual event occur regionally, and it probably will trigger me to watch a few more games.

For those who don't follow the sport....this year, the Mainz (1 FSV Mainz 05) is crapped out....currently second from the bottom at the mid-way point of the season.  They are pretty much destined to fall out of the league, into the 2nd level....as mid-May comes around and the season ends.

Well.....also in this league is the Frankfurt team (Eintracht Frankfurt)....who have done pretty well in this season, and actually have a long list of decent players with energy and skills. 

Usually clubs don't share out players.....but something clicked in the past month, and a week ago....Frankfurt came up and offered two key players for the rest of the season (no one really says money is involved).

Dominik Kohr and Danny da Costa are the two.

Yesterday....the two joined up with the Mainz squad and played....beating their opponent, and both were key elements of the win (3-2).

Still near the bottom?  Yes.  But you can figure from the sixteen games left in the season....the odds of 'falling-out' of the league have gone away.  In act, they might be able to reach some 50-50 level in the win column....with these two players 'loaned-out'.

'Fairy-tale' seasons are what drives people to certain sports and viewer action.  This might be one of those cases where people turn to view the game, in hopes that Danny and Dominik turn on some magic and lift the team another notch or two.  

The Fruit-Vegetable 'Bubble'?

 N-TV had this short update today, and talked over a perceived shortage of fruit and vegetables....in Germany.

So to the blunt nature of this story.  A fair amount of winter fruit and vegetables sold in German grocery stores....comes from Spain/Portugal.  In the past month, entry rules have been established and the slow-down of delivery of trucks has started to occur.  NO one is saying it's a big deal yet (I need to emphasize that part of the story).

The trucker has to present at the border....a certificate that he's been tested in the past 72 hours.  As the journalist says....it's not really a practical thing to accomplish now.

The government folks not really grasping how the delivery system works, and the trucker-mechanism?  That's really part of the bigger story.  

What the story is leading onto....it's a trend, and you probably will start to notice over the next month....certain grocery shelves will be mostly empty instead of mostly full.  German fruit and vegetables will be no issue, but they usually don't start appearing in abundance until mid-spring to late-fall.  

Pricing to go up?  No one says that....just that the logistical system isn't designed to function with the ban-rules that exist. 

The sad thing here is that this whole issue will turn into a chat-forum for public TV in Germany, and five guys will waste an  hour explaining how fruit gets picked up in Spain, and moved to grocery operations in Germany.  Politicians will stand there in utter amazement that they never really thought much about how they get fresh blackberries in January, and how the trucks fit into this whole thing.

Who is QPatrioten24?

 For roughly five years...this group in the US...called QAnon has existed.  It's a cryptic society with no clear 'top-dog' or agenda....beyond suggesting constantly that some Trump-vision-agenda exists, and it's secretly guiding us to X-destination (I must admit....no one ever seems to know where X-destination really is).

Some suggest that 'Q' refers to a security clearance that exists within the Department of Energy.  

Some suggest that 'Q' refers to a Star Trek character...that seems to know all things.

Some suggest that 'Q' splinters off and might be some CCP (Chinese) or Russian intelligence device.  

Some even go and suggest that 'Q' was designed in some way as a political cult situation. 

So in the past couple of months...QPatrioten24 has appeared in Germany.  Cryptic messages follow.  

Where does the German 'Q' group lead onto?  Roughly 100k to 150k members.  'Agents' of 'Q'....so to speak.

Deutsche Welle covers part of this story and is worth a read.

Why show up now in Germany?  I would speculate because of the various state elections and the fall national election....the 'Q' gang intends to suggest insider information and drive the election results with some conspiracy chatter (some might be accurate, some mostly fake).

My humble view?  In the 1930s....a commercial company who dealt in a chocolate drink (within the US)....developed some advertising series about a secret decoder ring, a decoder book and secret messages that would be passed via their radio show commercials.  Kids bought into this, and generally believed that they were getting secret insider information.

'Q' works the same basic way...secret/confidential information, decoding required, and a secret path ahead (if you just trust in the instructions).

Will this work or alter the national election?  I think Chancellor Merkel would laugh and say that this all resembles some DDR-Stassi-like device. Others might be fearful of the 'Q' impact and suggest that every single social media platform might need to be supervised or turned-off.  

Germany and Covid-19: 24 Jan 2021

 1.  Pretty odd story....a hospital unit in Berlin (Humbolt Clinic) was shut down entirely in the past 24 hours....due to massive Covid-19 infection getting into the facility.  This is the new variant, and apparently has scared a lot of folks working in the unit.  Total absolute quarantine now on the clinic.  

2. The state of Thuringia in Germany....announced yesterday that schools are shut down in the state until Easter (4 April).  A lot of criticism has been dumped on the Education Minister for this decision.  Schools would basically continue with virtual learning.

3.  Dead as of nationwide for past 24 hours?  772.  Germans newly infected for past 24 hours?  14,285.

4.  More freedom for vaccinated Germans, over non-vaccinated Germans?  This is openly discussed now.  I would expect it to be legally challenged and the court system will ask where this is listed in the Constitution. 

The general idea is that you'd be allowed to travel past the German border, throughout Europe, with the vaccination (and proof of it).  As for the numbers?  No one can say with authority....how things will look in August.  It might be 70-percent accepting vaccination....or it might be 90-percent.  My guess is that this will flip into a political topic for the national election and hinder the CDU/SPD folks to some degree.  

5.  I noted last night watching ARD news....new trend has started up....because of the manpower shortage in hospitals.  A number of unemployed folks (because of Covid-19) have taken up mini-jobs (meaning a limit of 450 Euro a month, for part-time work only).  They are doing mostly work that would have been assigned to nurses (feeding patients, cleaning the rooms, getting patients from point 'A' to point 'B').  The lady being interviewed over this?  Hairdresser.  

6.  More vaccine arriving in February?  ARD had a piece this morning and suggested that the supply will increase...based on a new factory operation in Belgium.

7.  Poll was done by ARD  (public TV)....asking Germans how stressed they are with the ban rules.  One out of two said they were either strongly or severely stressed.

The polling also was broken down by age.  Amusingly enough....the older you were, the less frustration you had with the ban rules.  The younger you were....the more frustration you had.

8.  Increased night curfew coming?  Well....this going to be discussed by Merkel and the sixteen Premier-Presidents on Tuesday.  

The Chancellor wants to push for a 'copy' of the night-curfew that France has.  Currently, France runs it from 6 PM to 6 AM.  Only emergencies are allowed to break curfew.

Presently, the states are going with a 9 PM curfew.  Acceptance to a 6 PM deal?  I have my doubts that the states want to go to this extreme.  At least with the 9 PM deal....you could still order out, and have pizza delivered.  As for this affecting social life?  Well....social life is non-existent now already (for at least three months).

This Chatter Over a Quarantine 'Camp'?

 Right now, the German state of Schleswig Holstein (the state to the extreme north, bordering Denmark)...is preparing what was a boy's detention center....to be a forced-into-quarantine center.  

The deal?  I'll reference part of this situation back to a NDR story (public TV for the region).

As you have Covid-19 symptoms and go for the test....your regional health authority is going to pass you a note after you get the positive result.  It basically says you will isolate yourself in your house/apartment, period (no exceptions).  

No one really says the results here, but generally....some folks have said 'no'....just refusing to self-quarantine.  My humble guess?  Probably out of every hundred cases....one individual is violating the quarantine situation.  We aren't talking about walking the dog type excuses.....this goes up to the level of going grocery-shopping or still mingling on the street with some friend in conversation (while probably feeling a mild case of Covid-19).  

In a lot of German states, there's disbelief that it reaches the level that you have to actually force people into a controlled atmosphere.  

So here in this state...they finally said 'enough' and took open space at the enclosed facility (fencing to control things) to convert into a lock-down situation.  

Who runs it?  The retired-guards that used to run the boy's detention center. They run the control, and the pick-up vehicle.  

Expecting a lot of people?  Well....no.  In this initial phase....it's just three rooms that they have set up for this situation.  Yes, the rooms are basically jail-house-comfort, with jail-type doors.  

On the stupid-level?  You might be able to make a comment or two about the state going to this level of control....but then you gaze over at the violation crowd, and how they only needed to isolate themselves for fourteen days.  Various grocery operations now have ordering capability, and delivery to your front-door.  There should be no need for you to skip isolation and pretend that your infection situation is marginalized.

The odds that other states will follow this example?  Probably.  They all have the same issue.

People perceiving this as a serious breech of freedom?  You might have a slight case to utter that, but if some guy had Yellow Fever or Dengue Fever....you probably wouldn't want to find him sitting at the local pub and sipping beer with bar-buddies.  You'd try to encourage him in a nice way to go isolate himself for a period of time and just get over the health issue.  If he didn't seem willing to cooperate?  Then you'd probably agree that forced-quarantine is about the only path left.  

Court Case Story

 Back in April of 2020....as the virus business started up in Germany.....the ban rules went into effect....state-by-state.  Somewhere in the middle of this....the police caught this one guy in violation of the ban rules.  They brought him into court, and fined him.

Well....he didn't take it well, and took to legal action.  Yesterday....the Weimar District Court finalized the whole case.  Focus did a terrific piece explaining the whole case, and worth reading.

The court said....the government did not have authority in creating the ban rules, or enforcing them.  In simple terms, they were illegal.

As for how the court views this?  In the spring of 2020, there was no declared health emergency....so the shutdown rules and such were not practical.

They even hint in the commentary....it was all comparable to regular flu waves.

Does this effect everyone hurt or fined by the ban rules?  This is a regional court.....not a national court.  It'll be discussed and maybe within this eastern region....it might trigger fines to be refunded to people....beyond that?  No. 

The Chancellor and cabinet folks will read over the commentary, and probably just continue on.