BBC: Just Odd

Apparently, in the UK recently....there was a police raid on a 'gang' (undescribed)....with 3 folks detained.  Chief crime suggested?  Well....gang was people-smuggling and they had some Brit lawyers advising them....to help migrants pretend to be gay to get asylum in the UK.

I sat and pondered over this.  Fake-gay.

Trend thing, I imagine.

But apparently....once you fill out the sheet and claim gay-status....you are virtually guaranteed 'stay-status'.

How many are fake-gay?  It could be into the tens of thousands.  Trying to establish facts....are near impossible.

Oddly, back in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria....playing the gay-card....was bound to get you into serious trouble.

In the UK....it's a plus-up thing.

The lawyers in this effort?  Some judge is going to task them to explain things, and it's bound to be something that they don't want to discuss.  

7 Oct 2026: Germany: 8 Stories

 1.  Saxony-Anhalt: State parliament done....led by AfD Party and BSW Party.  CDU....almost non-existent.  Greens declare they are the absolute opposition to AfD.

2.  This Siberia-Crisis chatter with the plague....getting hyped in Germany to some degree.  

3.  "Day of Rage" declared by SPD Party against AfD Party.  News folks helping the agenda, but probably 50-percent of public aren't buying into the protest agenda.

4.  INSA poll (newest)...puts CDU-CSU at 17.5-percent.  SPD at 14.5 percent.  Together....they equal strength of AfD Party.  

If you divided the CDU-CSU up....CDU by itself would be around 14-percent (among 15 states).  

5.  Russian Chief Prosecutor....announced that there are Nazi elements in the Baltic area....encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.  To be honest, I generally include Sweden and Finland in the area as well.

BS?  Well...giving Putin the announcement....it'd open the door for drafting another 300k to 500k Russian guys for the Army and forward deploy them.  US/NATO reacting?  Yeah....but none of this really occurring in the next six months.

6.  France riots?  Continuing.

Classes cancelled for about 900 schools throughout France....mostly all highly urbanized areas.  Arrested on Tuesday: 488 activists/students.

7.  EU talking of bumping-up membership: Montenegro (likely to be entered by early 2028), Albania (has potential for 2028 as well), North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Ukraine (2028 possibility), Moldovia (2028 likely), Georgia (least likely of the eight).

German enthusiasm for the eight?  Marginal.  

8.  BND former chief (Germany's CIA)....under investigation.  What seems to be key to the BS....after he retired....he wanted consulting work to enlarge his retirement.  So he had all this history and insider knowledge to 'market'.  The problem here....if you start digging into consultant work....there's probably 10,000 former police, politicians, news media folks, etc....who market themselves with insider info. If you watch ARD/ZDF (the public TV folks)....they use such folks to hype a agenda that the networks market. 

Three Stories

 First, over the hill from my village....lies a small town of 15,000 residents.  About two weeks ago....there was a reported 'accident'.....older couple.....ended up dead.  News explained almost nothing.

Wife comes up today...has a need for the plumber to come over.  Plumber's wife is handling the call....this dual death story came up in conversation.

So....the story.

Older guy (around 84)....gets into the car.  Cranks it...puts it into gear.  Wife is coming out of the house to the street....to enter the car.  Guy has a heart-attack....foot goes to the floor....runs over the wife completely (she's dead).  Hits at least two more cars on the street (major damage).  Vehicle finally stops.  Ambulance comes....guy goes to the hospital....dead three days later.  Plumber's wife is the daughter of the couple.

Second story.....national piece, former 'boss/CEO' of BND (Germany's CIA)....detained.  Gov't says he was passing German intelligence to another country.  Lot of hype......no one wants to utter the 'party' (way it sounds....Mossad /  Israel).

Third story....about three weeks ago....I brought up a rape case.  Translady accused of raping a 14-year old teenage girl.  Trans-gal....is a police-person.

Well....case wrapped up today....guilty.  Transwoman will be sent to a Munich prison....39 months of time.  There apparently was a deal....gal confessed to lessen the case potential.  Type of prison being sent to?  Men's operation.

Who Is Behind The France Riots?

 Over the weekend, this topic came up a bit.

What you have as a landscape....is a wave of high-school blockades and street clashes that began as student protests over school conditions and has partly turned into rioting in general (going beyond school structures). 

The general belief....the school riot stuff....started with students, and the next wave....non-school buildings....was mostly far-left political actors/activists.

The term 'hijacking-a-cause' gets uttered this AM.

Education Minister Édouard Geffray has said far-left and ultra-left activists (yeah, going beyond the normal far-left BS)....have infiltrated the movement.

I noted this AM....the Paris police chief Patrice Faure....said the original organizers no longer control it and spoken of “professional rioters".

All of this affecting the spring France Presidential election?  Yes.

Odds of the riots continuing this week?  If they do....the police probably will figure out the activists involved, and detain them.  If you ask me....probably 60-percent of the public see some reason to bring in far-right political agenda folks....to fix the problem.

5 Oct 2026: Germany: 7 Stories

 1.  Last night's (Sunday) Greece-Germany soccer game?  0-0.  I watched around 20 minutes of it....decent play....Greece probably shocked some folks....played exceptionally well.

2.  Focus health expert....advising that you can avoid sugar cravings...by snacking healthy stuff (nuts, fruit, etc) every four hours (in between).

3.  Berlin-City Linke Party says they hope to conclude talks with SPD/Greens by Wed night....to form a coalition for the city-government.

4.  BMW is in same path as VW....cutting jobs/cost.

5.  Interesting opinion piece via WELT.....giving German 16-year-old's the right to vote....when dozens of other functions say maturity requires a age of 18 (driver's license, ownership of guns, purchase of booze, etc).

6.  Oktoberfest ended yesterday.  All-time record on visitors.....7.4-million guests.

7.  Winter-tire week for me....dragging the wife's Audi to a tire shop on Friday....to put the winter tires on. It took me years to accept this German idea.....winter/summer tires over all-weather tire habit (of the US).  

Greece, Reparations and the Marshall Plan

In the summer of 1930....the best description of the German economy was "heading-toward-failure".  Unemployment was surging and business operations were stalled.  Banks were generally on the edge of failure. The public perception for the September election in 1930....was to garner support for the Nazi Party.  They would pick up around eighteen percent of the national vote.....mostly as a protest-type vote and in hopes of a recovery for the economy.

By the summer of 1932, the Nazi Party had established enough clout to control national politics in Germany.  With the economy still in a marginal status....the plan head involved two massive areas of public expenditures (for the military industry and for the national infrastructure....roads, state buildings and bridges).  For the finance office to cover the growing debt....they used revenue taxes and a new gimmick of a national "I-O-U" allotment (Mefo bills, as they are commonly referred to).

The package going to the public from 1932 on....was that socialism was the general solution to the public problems with the economy.  

Unemployment did gradually resolve itself.....mostly because of public projects and the military industry.  So, in the minds of most....the Nazi Party was delivering on their promise.

Somewhere in the mix by 1936....exports from Germany going out had declined by roughly ten-percent.  Imports had climbed approximately ten-percent.  You can guess the general effect on economy....it was dragging Germany down.

Rationing arrived in 1939, as Germany was marching across various neighbor countries.  If it hadn't been for the military situation.....most of the public would have asked why rationing was necessary and if there wasn't more to the economic woes than publicly stated by the government.

In the spring of 1941....both Germany and Italy arrived in Greece.  Some Greeks may try to deny Italian involvement.....but the Italians were there as well.  In fact, the original invasion of Greece was around October of 1940.....six months prior....where the Italians found the Greeks capable of defending against a marginal Italian force.  With the Germans assisting....there were no issues.

Military-wise.....roughly forty thousand within the region of Athens died of starvation, and somewhere in the range of another fifty thousand Greeks died in conflict with the Italians or Germans.

Somewhere in the middle of this invasion....the Germans arrive to the Greek National Bank and want a loan.  Oddly, this is written out, with zero-percent interest on the document, and Germans walk away with the bulk of the bank's money.  It should be noted.....this was not robbery....documentation exists and the amount agreed upon.

When the Greeks today talk of the loan, it's a factual piece of information.  You can sum the loan up to around eleven billion Euro in today's money.....with zero-percent interest figured into the scheme.

When the war finished, Germany and Japan were both finished off economically.  American historians went back and reviewed the lessons learned from WW I.  The Germans had huge reparations owed to England and France.  It unsettled the recovery of Germans from 1919....to the election period of 1930.  Fascism grew out of the reparation story.  In order to prevent that.....the US enacted what would be called the Marshall Plan.  If anyone in Europe had a reparations angle....they'd come to the US and avoid engaging Germany into another mess.  The US....would pay for everyone's reparations.

I know.....it's hard to believe and no one really talks about this angle to the Marshall Plan....but it was about preventing WW III or the recovery of the German fascism agenda.  Between this.....the division of Germany, and the US troops staying in Germany....things would be ironed out and prevent something stupid from happening.

What did the Greeks get from the Marshall Plan?  Roughly 3.5 billion dollars between 1947 and 1951 (in today's dollars).  Did the Greeks of 1947 understand this deal?  Yes.  Are these gentlemen all dead today?  Yes.  Do any of the political figures of Greece today grasp the Marshall Plan?  It's difficult to say if any of the top twenty Greek leaders can give a simple eight-line explanation to the Marshall Plan and it's effect on the Greek economy.

Around 1960, the German government came back and offered a settlement on each Greek killed and damages caused.  The Greeks accepted that deal.  Do any of the Greek leaders of today remember that arrangement?  Probably not.  Did any of the victim money go to actual families in Greece?  Probably not.

Did any Communist country in Europe get Marshall  Plan funding?  No...that was a key feature of the Soviet monopoly over eastern Europe.

One of the odd features of the German recovery after WW I (if you even desire to refer to it as a "recovery")....was by 1925......Germany had gone on a turbo 'binge' of borrowing money.  They were deep into debt within a few years.  This was all done because the government was stuck with an economy that was stalled and unable to recover.  Flooding the market with borrowed money, they gave the public and business the impression of a full recovery in process.....WHEN it wasn't recovering.

In some ways....Greece since 2008 has done the exact same thing as Germany after WW I.  Greece might have been already walking in the borrowed money scheme back twenty and thirty years ago.....but since 2008.....they've gone to various levels beyond anything that the Germans schemed up in 1925.

The reparations game here?  What happened after the Trojan War (1194 BC)?  What happened after the Greece-Punic War in 600 BC?  What happened after the Greece-Persia War (499 BC)?  What happened in the Social War of 357 AD?  What happened in 334 with Alexander the Great and his Greek Army invading various neighbors?  What happened in the Greek Civil Wars of 1823 (phase one and phase two)?   The sad truth is that Greece has had over sixty various wars or campaigns over the past three-thousand years.  Greece ought to be paying for reparations of various wars to their neighbors, if they take this reparations game serious.

Security Upgrade

 I walked around Wiesbaden mid-city this afternoon.  There's a small city park....two war memorials 'hangout' for drunks/alcoholics.

Police added a security 'trailer' with lights/cameras in recent days.

Interesting unit....must be five or six cameras on the tower platform.

Around 10 AM....if you walk by....there's always between fifteen and twenty-five folks (men/women) on their first beer of the morning.  By mid-afternoon....most are on their fifth or sixth beer.  

I thought it was fairly safe...other than drunks arguing with drunks....never any violent BS.

Where This Sudden Call For Elections In Spain Might Go?

If you use current polls (August)...the center-right PP Party is in first place....and a PSOE (Sanchez left-of-center crew) majority within reach.  Three points separate them.

Rumored election day?  29 November now.

In the control of seats?  PP (right-of-center) is figured to take around 139 seats, and VOX (right-wing) would take near 64 seats.  You need 176 seats to have coalition.  The 4th and 5th place parties?  They'd take a max of ten seats (not really figured into anything).

So there are three things falling into play....Sanchez as PM....is probably gone. With all this migration-hype....you can figure some type of massive change is in the pipeline....destined for January-February action.  Finally, a lot of the left-of-center social promises of the past decade....probably are going to dissolve.

If you asked me the problems in this election?  I'd say unemployment for youth, housing issues, migration, safety-security, and dynamics of tourism overwhelming 'reality'.  

Could the Sanchez crew pull out a miracle of 4-to-6 points plus?  Yes....if they were to hype the housing crisis and fixing unemployment numbers.