The Plugs Story

If you go to a typical US or European hotel....at least in the four-star range, you rarely pay attention to this detail....but if you count electrical outlets in the room....they usually average eight to ten.  Of which four will be used for items stationed in the room (TV, bed lamps, clock radio, etc).

I stayed at a Helsinki hotel this week, and about thirty minutes into this stay....I just stared around the room at electrical outlets.  Total?  Altogether (including the bathroom).....around twenty.  Everywhere you looked....multiple plug-in points.

Just about everywhere that you turned in the room, there's another outlet.

This brought me to an odd question....do Finns and Swedes carry around that many devices that require power?

Between my wife and I.....we might carry one cellphone, a camera unit that might require a charge, a small portable coffee maker, and a hair-dryer.  That's it.  The odds of ever needing all four at the same time charged?  Zero.

The odds that all twenty lead to just one circuit breaker?  Perhaps something that shouldn't be brought up, but one might assume that all twenty lead to just one single circuit, and it'd be a waste to have that many plugs in such a situation.

Course, maybe all of this is simply forethought, from some Finn hotel designer from sixty years ago.

The Stoic Station

About a hundred years ago (1919) the railway station in Helsinki finally opened up.  The locals spent a dozen years building the whole complex.  If you were looking for a major operation, with a theme and built to last.....this is one of the finer train stations that I've ever come across.

I'd take a guess that in another hundred years.....the station will still be there and standing.

One of the odder features of the building is that they actually have a VIP-Presidential lounge.  Yeah, it is actually reserved for the President of Finland and he could show up....with some entourage....sip some beers and talk up politics....at the railway station.  How often he ever uses it?  I would have my doubts.

Usage of the railway center?  Well, the station has 17 platforms, a major subway connection point, a huge bus parking lot and a tram-stopping for a dozen-odd trams in operation around the city.  You can figure that 200,000 people use some part of this station on a daily basis.

One of the interesting features of the station is the entryway (facing south).  On each side are two Finn-like guys (long hair obviously)....muscular and giving the stoic Finn stare.

I stood admiring the two guys on the right side.  It's an impressive entry area.

The one thing you start to realize is that whoever made the manly Finn statues....wanted to ensure each had prominent nipples.  Even from 200 feet away....you kinda notice this. Most manly statues around Europe don't go into that kind of detail.  Obviously, this artist did.

So if you ever are in Helsinki....I would encourage you to go and spend an hour walking around the railway station.  It is an interesting structure, with a lot of thought put into a useful structure a century ago, and into the modern era of today.

My Trash Can Story

I stood in the main city park of Helsinki this week, and noted an abundance of these cans.  Hard metal type.....solar cells mounted on the top.  They have some mechanism/sensor which checks the contents and tells some maintenance guy who comes along....to empty the can.

Yeah, it's a lot of technology to push into a regular city garbage can.  What did guys do before the light business?  They lifted the top to gaze in.

Cost?  With the solar cell technology?  2013 pricing indicates it was around $3,000 in the US for such a can.  So you can figure in Helsinki, with a 23-percent tax rate....it's in the $4k range.

It's not a big park but I would guess at least a dozen cans placed around the park.....so they spent $60,000 minimum.

On the green bragging scale.....they got lots of points.  In terms of value or use?  I have my doubts.  Eventually, the cell will wear out and some replacement cell will have to be procured.  The disposal of the old cell?  That's a curious thing.  With various EU rules in effect, I doubt that you can just dump this or bury it.  So you might have to spend at least 100 Euro to dispose of one single cell like this.

I admit....the can is sturdy and could last forty years.  The cell?  I have my doubts that it lasts more than ten years.

Helsinki: Safety

I spent the week (five days) in Helsinki.  I'll probably write three or four essays off the topic but there's one significant thing that I tended to notice.  Security (safety).

With the exception of the railway station in Helsinki.....I walked around for five days in the city and just never saw the cops.  I can't think of a single German city where you would get that feeling or see so little of the police.  Maybe twenty years ago, that was possible.....but not in today's atmosphere.

Crime in Helsinki?  Almost non-existent. Even if you read up on it.....the most that you have to worry about is pick-pocketing.

No thugs?  No drug activity?  No nutcases?

Now, I admit....it's brutally cold in the winter (-3 C, with a 20 kph wind).....making it awful cold.  With just five hours of sunlight in the winter, People just don't hang out much.

The cops at the railway station?  I think they simply drew a line and let the crime crowd know that they won't tolerate anyone just hanging around and making for trouble (like you'd see in Koln or Frankfurt).  I stood in the middle of the station and can admit that you don't see dark corners or shady characters eyeballing unsuspecting 'targets'.

Course, on the other hand....it is a fairly socialized country with a high tax rate.....23-percent on sales tax for example.  Anyone thinking about settling there or picking it for a new homeland....might examine the cost of living (just the cost of a can of Pepsi), and discuss other options.

On safety, I'd rate Helsinki at a "10".....just don't go in the midst of winter though.

The 485,000

I was reading a long list of business-related articles and this little short two liner got thrown into the mix.  Some analyst sat down with numbers from the BaMF (the German agency responsible for migration and refugees).

It's a number statement that kinda surprises you.  The numbers from BaMF says that as you enter into 2018, there will be 485,000 rejected immigrants sitting in Germany.  These are people who filled out the paperwork....went through the months of review by BaMF....and it concluded that they were not going meet the standards or requirements of Germany.  Course, they might put hundred here and there on planes over each month and keep the number from ever reaching 500,000.

Public view?  Since they are dispersed across the sixteen states, it's hard to view this as an immediate problem.  If someone did break the number down and you came to realize that you had 700 of these people in Mainz, or 2,000 in Frankfurt, or 3,200 in Koln....that's the point where the public might shift and make this a personal or regional issue.

Last year, I read a commentary where someone within one of the German political parties suggested some kind of "bonus" for those who volunteered and left with no issue, but they never suggested the amount of money to be involved.  The problem with this is that you might have a guy who collects his bonus, and this convinces a dozen others in his homeland to make the trip....just to collect the bonus.

More of one group than another?  This is one of the statistical displays which isn't readily available, and it makes you wonder if there are very few Syrians or Iraqis on this list, but a lot more Tunisians or Afghanis.

 The problem I see is that as this number lingers.....the public will start to ask what the failed applicants are doing and you start to discover some of them directly connected to crime or the drug-trade.  If you were looking for an election year theme, this connect a lot of the public to one single issue.

Guy On a Spiral

There are a dozen-odd news sources which have gone to review the personal history of the Berlin terrorist.  In some way, it reads like a tragic saga.

Young guy at age 16 in the midst of Al-Waslatiyah, Tunisia.  It's a town of 8,000 residents and already a decade ago showing economic issues, with marginal employment chances.  Already in his youth, he's on the focus of the cops.....apprehended for alcohol consumption and bad juvenile behavior (drug usage).

At age 18, in the midst of the revolution, he has a chance to leave Tunisia (2011).  He boards a ship and ends up in Italy.....in a refugee camp.  He only gets this chance at the refugee camp because he convinces the Italians that he's really an underage teenager.....something which he is not.

His history at the refugee camp is short and dismal.  He helps to set fire to a building.  Evidence points toward him, and he ends up in a real Italian prison....a four-year sentence.

Normally, you'd be evaluated on a four-year sentence, and possibly earn months off the sentence.  There is no evidence to show any positive behavior in the Italian prison....so he spent the whole four years in prison.

Released?  Italy has this amazing problem upon him completing his sentence.  Tunisia won't accept him back.  He's got some serious history attached, and they really don't want him back.

Within a couple of months, he's packed up and left Italy.....going to Germany.

No one gives the reason or logic to this 2015 move to Germany.  Maybe it's just social media chatter and the fact that Germans at that point aren't hyped up to stop anyone.

The family back in Tunisia get feedback from the guy.....he's got periods of employment in the agricultural field.  No one can prove this side of the story.

What the Germans can say is that the guy ends up quickly in the drug-trafficking field.  The Germans detain him on various occasions, with six possible aliases.

All along this year-long period....he's connected to either drug dealing or radicalized Islam folks.  You can tell already at this point, there is nothing good out of this lifestyle to come.

Six months ago....the Germans finally conduct the last review and say "no" to his asylum application.  Deporting him?  Impossible.  He has no passport, and Tunisia isn't eager to cooperate on taking him back.  Would you?

At some point, Tunisia is convinced by the Germans (no one says how)....to produce a passport and accept him back.  The new passport?  It arrives two days after the Berlin attack.

He always talks about some employment or some change in his economic circumstance.  I don't think there is a single factual moment that he can show he ever earned an income that didn't come via radicalized folks or the drug business.  Over a six-year period....there is no twist or turn.   He never had a chance.

A Tale of Two Guys

 This week in Wiesbaden, a murder occurred over in the Biebricher neighborhood of town. Local Kiosk.  The lady owner is shot in the head, her husband wounded, and the nephew (professional soccer player) who was just walking into the establishment wounded as well.

Nothing makes much sense of the situation because the cops say 'no robbery'.

Based on descriptions....the top picture is what was released the next day by the cops as they searched for this guy.

Two days later, while the guy is still on the run....they have done their homework and can identify the guy as Benjamin G.

The guy lived in the local area of Biebrich.

Nothing makes much sense out of this murder.  The pictures?  Two entirely different people.  But then you realize that the second picture (on the bottom) is the passport ID picture of this guy at age 18.  The top picture....the same guy....in the police drawing....seven years later.

There's probably some epic chain of events over the past seven years with this Benjamin G character....involving some drug usage.  Benjamin version one was some clean-cut kid with some apprenticeship and focus.  Benjamin version two is some lost guy with no real focus and a threat to society.

There's a story to be written here over a guy who walked off the clear path to a future.  Sadly, it doesn't go well with the ending.

UPDATE: Sometime on Friday evening....the cops finally cornered the guy in question....near his apartment, and arrested him.  Situation over. No motive noted by the cops still.

The Narcissist Story

There is an odd feature of the Berlin terror act of this week.....the terrorist left his visa in the cab of the truck.  For me, it makes no sense why some idiot would go and do all of this....then drop this ID of himself.

Focus went out and asked the cops about this, and wrote up a piece today.  What the cops say is that they've noticed various occasions (Nice, Paris, etc) that ID's being left at the crime scene is almost normal for a terrorist.

Real criminals don't do stupid crap like this.

Narcissists....however....want to be identified with the act, and leaving the ID there is the way for them to claim their status.

Generally, there are five fairly recognized traits to a narcissist: (1) they don't identify with the feelings or needs or others, (2) they tend to always exaggerate on what they did or what talent they have, (3) someone has to lose in order for the narcissist to gain, (4) always thinks of themselves as special, and (5) lives mostly in a fantasy dream-world.

In this case, the guy doesn't care if he lives or dies....so leaving the ID doesn't really matter to him except it gets him front page lines.

Since every time a German newscast comes up with his picture and name....or he sees a German newspaper with his picture and name.....he gets all hyped up and gets a thrill.

If you think about this...perhaps the obvious step to take is when you put up some picture of a highly wanted terrorist in German.....give them a fake name.  "BX", "ST", or "CY".

I admit....the news people might throw a ethics fit over this and lodge a complaint about this to the court-system.....but if this entire game is about a bunch of loser narcissists...then it's time to play some real poker and up the whole ante.

Facebook can play by substituting the fake name for the real name whenever any article comes up.  Twitter can do the same.

Treat the narcissists like you treat hurricanes....just make up a name.

The Lost Consumers of Swedish News

I picked up a Swedish publication....Resume....which had this interesting report from the Stockholm School of Economics. They sat down with seven Swedish newspapers or TV news producers (Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, Swedish Radio, Swedish Television, and Upsala Nya Tidning), and asked some questions about where Swedes are going with their views on news.

At some point, they came to this surprising conclusion.

Roughly fifty-percent of Swedes DON'T get their daily dose of news from the listed seven producers (seen above).

One out of five Swedes in the survey said that their focus in life led to distrust of the news media.  Note....that didn't really make up the whole of that 50-percent number.  This would lead one to ask more questions.

One gets the impression after reading the Resume article....that a fair number of Swedes want news to fit their thinking, their agenda or their focus in life.  This isn't to say that they are right-wing or conservative.....they could very well be leftist, or on an environmental theme, or desiring good news only.    These are people who weren't going toward the seven normal delivery vehicles of news in Sweden.

What Resume does hint toward the end of this article....this is the first time anyone has ever looked at news and viewers in Sweden.  In some ways, the survey now lays out a great mystery and requires more research.

The curious thing, when you sit and look at this information....is that news organizations mostly survive because of capitalistic tendencies.  They go after a consumer and ensure that the consumer is satisfied.  Up until now, the Swedish news empire felt they were in control and easily had the bulk of consumers.   Now?  Less so.

Some people will say that news is not consumer driven....but factual.  However, these are not the people paying the bills at the newspapers or determining the national TV tax.

I sat and looked up the state TV tax.  250 Euro a year.

Where does this all lead?  I suspect that the newspapers and TV news people are a bit shocked at the high level (50-percent) of people who don't use their service or product.  If there was a slant or agenda....this report more or less confirms that people have caught on and simply declined the product.  A problem for future politics?

The next big election in Sweden is in Sep of 2018.  To be honest, Swedish politics runs along a normal script with roughly eight political parties.  The majority are center-left/center-right....a Green Party...and the remainder on the left.  The Swedish Democrat Party would be the only party that has a right-wing theme.  The only new-comer party that Swedes might admit to?  The Pirate Party....but it's mostly a younger voter theme with them.

An upsurge for the Swedish Democratic Party?  They will 'brag' in speeches of taking 25-percent in the next election.  That would be double of what they took in the last election (12.9-percent of the total vote).

The angry frustrated crowd influenced by their choice of news?  Yet to be played out and if you read the whole Resume article....there's this big mystery left....what exactly are these readers thinking?  Are they pro-capitalist, anti-capitalist, pro-immigration, anti-immigration,etc?

Curiously enough....the population of Sweden is 9.6 million.  Number of Facebook members?  Just over 5 million.  The German identification of the fake news problem is likely to repeat with the same accusations in Sweden (sooner or later).

My Top Ten German Fakes

I sat the other day and pondered upon this German topic of fake news, asked myself....why one circle?  There actually are a lot of fake things....some even German.

1.  Nutella.  It's a wonderful German "nutritional" spread for breakfast or snacks.  I should note that it's 70-percent saturated fat and processed sugar by weight.  Just two table-spoons are 200 calories.  This German spread is often hyped up in various countries (to include the US) as a great nutritional item because it comes from Hazelnuts. The thing is....if you bring up this nutritional topic....German experts will get all hyped up and angry because it is fake.  No nutritional expert will ever say it has any good stuff on nutrition.

2. VW Diesel Issue.  For roughly seven years, VW manufactured a series of diesel engine which they were proud of the technology for clean air.  Then someone figured out that the software within the vehicle was rigged, and it was a 'dirty' diesel engine. Fake statistics?  Yeah.  The engineering team came to realize they could never build a engine that had good mileage, was clean, and had power.....so they manufactured a software that made you think it was clean.  It is such a fake situation, that VW is fairly damaged.  German owners getting compensation?  Oddly, they are at the very end of the whole deal and VW is probably hoping that the German government never forces them to pay off individual owners here.

3.  Fake resume.  For over twenty years, Petra Hinz kept moving up the SPD Party of members in NRW.  Her job profession?  She was a degreed-lawyer. Well....back in July of 2016....reality finally caught up and she had to admit that she didn't have the law degree, and never took the state bar exam. Here she was....one of the top twenty-five SPD members nationally, and highly regarded within Berlin Bundestag....a fake lawyer.  She was urged to resign quickly....for the sake of the party.  This took several months of coaching before she finally walked away.

4.  Fake band, Milli Vanilla. This German R&B band (two guys actually) was a creation of Frank Farian in 1988.  What can be said is that Frank did know good music and how to package it.  So he had these tunes in his mind, but he needed a front act to fit it.  So he hired these two guys....Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus.  Fab and Rob basically dressed in hip-fashion (for 1988), and had the appearance of male models.  1989 was this break-out year for the band with Girl You Know It's True....giving them a Grammy for Best New Artist in spring of 1990.  The thing is....NEITHER guy could actually sing.  Frank had the vocals done in a studio with a couple of regular singers/artists who didn't have the "appeal" that Fab and Rob gave him.  Things would have been fine except both Fab and Rob wanted to do the vocals and sing on their own....which they just didn't grasp the talent situation.  The public figured out the gimmick by the end of 1990.  Things went downhill with the German band, with Rob heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol, dying in a Frankfurt hotel in 1998.

5.  Fake German beer steins.  Most all American guys who spend a couple of years in Germany on some tour....end up with a authentic-looking beer stein.  These can be highly decorative.  Prior to the 1990s....when you bought one of these at some local German gift shop....it probably was German-made.  Over the past decade, the German gift shops have imported a fair number of Chinese-made steins.  So if you are buying these....you need to pay attention, and buy only from a reputable dealer and ask questions.

6.  Fake Hitler Diary. In the early 1980s....Konrad Kujau appeared with no less than sixty volumes of daily journals that Adolf Hitler had written.  Yeah....it was unbelievable at the time that such journals existed.  The fact that we are talking about sixty of them....all hand-written...was a monumental effort.  It took roughly two years to create these.  Stern magazine (one of the top German publications) bought the sixty....for 9.3 million DM (roughly 4.5 dollars).  To recover their investment.....they sold serial rights to the sixty journals. By 1984....the fake diaries were figured out.  It became a massive scandal, with Focus, the London Times, and Newsweek all tied to this.  For months, jokes were made about the fake diaries.  The thing is....Germans were hyped to want to know more about Hitler and were literally begging for the diaries to exist.

7.  Fake Western Writer.  When German Karl May passed away in 1912 at age 70....he had the distinction of having written dozens of successful western-theme fictional books.  In his youth, you can basically say that he was more or less a failure as a tutor (his chosen profession).  From 1870 to 1874....he spent some time in prison and spent a fair amount of this episode reading.  So when he emerged in 1874....he felt he could write as well as anyone, and started producing an American western series of books.  You have to remember....he'd never stepped outside of Germany in his life (at this point).  The series would revolve around a friendly Indian (Winnetou) and a honest cowboy (Old Surehand).  Using travel pamphlets, Karl wrote a series of western books that Germans enjoyed and were entertained by.  From 1892 to 1899....May was turning out a book about every four months. Germans generally laugh over the stories today, but the movies made from the 1960s are regularly featured.  How May accomplished this?  Most say that he had a great imagination and did pour into research of the topic.  That made up for the fact that he didn't make a trip to the US until the last few years of his life.

8.  Fake Car of the Year.  Back in 2013....ADAC, the Automobile Club of Germany, did a annual collection of votes to pick car of the year.....which ended up with the VW Golf being the winner.  So after a few weeks of hype....it came out that the votes were manipulated, and the Golf should not have been the ADAC car of the year.

9.  Fake Phantom Killer.  For roughly two years, German cops were convinced because of DNA evidence that a serial killer was operating somewhere in the region of Heilbronn.  They had tied at least a dozen serious crimes (from robbery to murder) to this one single individual.  At some point, it appears that a cop began to doubt the complex nature of this whole case and he sent a blank DNA swab to the analysis office.  It came back identifying the Phantom Killer to the non-existent crime. This was a problem now.  So, they looked at the packing of the DNA swabs and went to the company that manufactured them.  The company wasn't aware of this DNA usage....they simply sold their product to a 3rd party, who packaged it as DNA swabs.  There was no control and individuals at the company were openly in contact with the swabs during production.  The whole fake phantom killer investigation?  Literally thousands of man-hours thrown into this....totally wasted.

10. Fake wine connoisseur.  By the end of the 1980s....Hardy Rodenstock (in his late 40s) had been a successful publisher and even managed a number of German pop and Schlager stars.  His newest claim to fame was that he was a wine collector, and wine connoisseur.  His big deal was old and rare wines.  So Hardy would have these five-star wine tastings, with a few prominent people around and sold wine that was featured.  At some point in the 1991/1992 period....the gimmick was figured out and that some of the rare wines were simply a fraud.  By 1992, Hardy ended up in front of a German court and had to settle out of court.  The problem is that a lot of people from across the globe had bought 'treasured' wine for hefty prices with some sitting there wondering the real value or authenticity.  Some of Hardy's deals were probably correct and some questionable.

When I talk about this topic of fakeness.....it's not that the Germans alone produce a fair bit of fake things....but that German society will easily buy into fakes.  You can ask Germans today about Nutella, at least half of society will say that it's a nutritional spread for a breakfast....which hypes up the nutritional-police to a great extent.   When ADAC's car of the year fake came up....it blew up the brand-name of ADAC for vote-rigging.

Skepticism is a wonderful tool....if applied.  

My Ten Observations on Fake News

On an average, I'll probably run through one thousand stories or news posts each week....some maybe more....some maybe less.  I'm retired, and I have time on my hands.  The number of organizations?  NPR, London Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, ARD, ZDF, SWR, N-24, France-24, BBC, Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the Daily Mail, The Australian, HuffPo, Drudge, the Telegraph, the AGE out of Australia, etc.

After a while, you can generally regard news into three categories: (1) worthless, meaning anything with Lady GaGa, Kardashians or Hollywood remakes.  (2) limited value or fake news.  This usually means they cite one fact, and then tell an entire story....40 lines....over that one fact...which most are simply their humble opinion or slant view of the story.  I generally regard this more as commentary or a blog-deal....rather than real news.  Then (3), where you have some honest journalist like at the WSJ who is telling a 40-line story with ten facts over a developing situation like the VW diesel story.  You don't own a diesel VW but you just find it interesting how so many people worked to deceive the public and the government.  Factually, it is complete.

So, here are my observations:

1.  If they don't cite where or who they got the information from....it's either limited value or fake news.  If they say some priest noted the Pope's letter said such-and-such.....who is the priest?

2.  If a poll is the entire basis of the story....it's either a limited value or fake news item.  Polls for the most part can be constructed to bring a false story enough weight to support the theme wanted by the journalist.

3.  Once you realize a past story written by such-and-such writer/journalist was totally false....if the newspaper or press organization won't fire the guy....then everything he or she produces is a question mark from that point on.  By not firing them....it is bringing discredit to the organization.

4.  If it sounds too good to be true.....it probably isn't true.

5.   The lack of quotes.  Most factual stories will quote someone....at least once or twice.  If there's not a single quote in the story....it might still be true, but the odds lessen to some degree.

6.  Do your homework.  If they discuss some particular trend or event....go back and read several reviews on the trend or event (not just with these guys).  You want to build up a group of sources that you generally feel good about.  When the Wall Street Journal talks about business, I feel comfortable with their analysis.  When the Washington Post talks about the DC metro, I generally don't feel that comfortable with their analysis.  When German ARD folks discuss BREXIT, I take the news and read other sources because I know that ARD can be occasionally one-sided on their view.

7.  Planted news.  When some new five-star news comes out and it looks really bad on one company, or one political party, or one country....you might want to ask....was this planted by someone with an agenda?  Fake?  No....but it means there's more to the story and the agenda.  If the story-line comes out of some charity or human-rights group...what's the factual side of the story or what can be proven?

8.  News derived from a foundation.  Journalists like to get 'copy' from some foundation who hand them a hundred lines for a story, and they cut-and-paste the item....without really researching the angle or slant.  The minute that you realize it's a foundation-piece....you need to exercise your judgement on the fakeness level.

9.  Rarely is there fake news in sports.  I've been waiting for someone to dig up some fake story on German soccer, or Grand Prix auto racing....but it never appears to happen.  So your chief aim on fake news has a limit.  Same can be said for fashion, and TV-show commentaries.

10.  Remember that there's only X-amount of news per day being created.  So, let's be realistic....at best, there might be 100 lines of real news for you to read, and the rest is all garbage.  So, to get you up and watching this broadcast or reading Focus or Bild....they have to hype things a good bit.  It's part of the gimmick.

Do we need filters to filter out fake news?  Maybe.  But then you might ask....will legit journalists find ways to deliver news of a marginal quality with limited quality of factual information?  Notice, I didn't call it fake news....just marginal quality.

We may find in a year that the new Facebook filter removed not only fake news but also legit pieces written by Newsweek, the Daily Mail, and the Italia Oggi out of Milan.  Then we wake up by the end of 2017 realizing that a quarter of normal users of Facebook just stopped logging in or checking things out.  Then we act all shocked that another platform emerged out of thin air over the summer of 2017....providing everything that Facebook filtered out.

It's like the anti-alcohol slant at the turn of the last century in the US, and our attempt in 1920 to finally squeeze out booze and bring in the Prohibition Era.  It took only a couple of years to admit that while in the morally right position....it was an absolute failure, and it took til 1933 to end mistake.

Fake news is worth discussing but if you drag this topic to an open debate with real Germans.....they might just suggest wage stagnation and increasing poverty affect them more than fake news.  That's the harsh reality of this debate.

Footnote: I'm also wondering where UFO news, the Loch Ness Sea Monster, Bigfoot, and Kardashian updates will end up with this Facebook fake news checker.  Is it possible that Bigfoot might pass, but Kardashian stories might fail?

The Once Upon a Time Story

It is a story which is remarkable in some ways, and in others....demonstrates how Germans are fixated on fixing a problem that they perceive.

So, SWR tells the basic story.

Some education tests and surveys were conducted, and in the Baden-Wurttemburg region....there's some lousy numbers for kids and their ability to spell.  Bad enough...that the Minister of Culture (Education as well)...wants to shift a huge focus on this issue.

The teacher's union reaction?  Well...you need better equipment (hint: computers).  Some of the retired teachers would probably grin and say that they did just fine with writing and spelling activities long before computers came along and that it's a skill or talent that needs simple enforcement.

Normally, you'd look at this issue and just say it's the bottom 50-percent of kids...those in Hauptschule who are on this dismal negative list.  Well, in the past year....there's been some university talk in Germany that kids arriving at their front-door....aren't prepared in terms of language skills (hint: writing).  So, this is probably a more broad issue.

As for the fix?  You get this odd feeling that computers and spelling software would be the solution, which translates in funding escalation.  You'd have to send Huns and Claudia to an hour a week of some computer-room deal, where they get 45 minutes of writing some story and having the computer check their writing for spelling errors and "encourage" (it's hard to make up another word to fit) them to spell better.

Eventually some smart German kid would suggest that his Microsoft Word program at home has a word-checker and he doesn't worry about errors because it finds and corrects his errors.  I admit....the kid might be right.

There is a historical side to this story.  In the early 1800s, if you went around and measured Germans on writing, reading and spelling skills....you would have found a marginal score not worth bragging about.

Then came the Brothers Grimm.  These two intellectuals have this one curiosity and hobby....they like to sit at a local pub, sip a beer and hear a good story.  They build onto their passion....the German language, and see this great chance to build an actual dictionary of German words and meanings (something that hadn't occurred).

Along the way, by 1810....they've written a collection of tales which catch on with Germans everywhere and serves as a vessel of entertainment.  Without TV, radio or regular news type publications....the book is a clear masterpiece with the general public.

Over the next hundred years....if you were looking for something that would draw Germans to spelling, language, reading, and story-telling....their book of fables did the job.

Today?  It's mostly forgotten and story-telling takes a back-seat to life.

So if you are watching on some night....some German news segment and the political folks are falling all over swords....left and right....about writing skills and needing more computers....that's what the whole story is about.  It's worthy of a fable, but it's hard to say who is the wolf or where these gold coins will be found in the deep dark enchanted woods.

The Rest of the Freiburg Murder Case

It's been two weeks since cops in Freiburg announced that they had their suspect in the case of a young nursing student who was murdered back about two months ago.  17-year-old Afghan guy who immigrated in the fall of 2015 into Germany.

At the time, I figured....someone will go and challenge his age.  Authorities noted that they felt pretty sure about things, and that the kid would end up in juvenile court, with a max of ten years on the sentence if guilty.

Then it came out that in Greece (the Isle of Corfu), this kid in 2013 (then at age 17) had attempted to push some Greek gal off some 30 foot cliff and kill her.  Video of the guy being taken into court was shown yesterday.  Event was hyped up in Corfu.  Sentenced to ten years....at the 18-month point, the judge releases him.

Oddly, none of this....his name, his crime, his sentence, his release from jail.....was put into any Interpol database.  Lots to say over the Greeks and their incompetence of this.

Kid leaves Greece upon release, and comes to Germany....without a passport.  Greeks still held that. Does an interview.....things check out....he is registered and gets a visa.

I watched the German interior minister give his speech on the topic last night.  He's a bit peeved because the guy is at least 20 years old and never should have left Greece.

The mess to clean up?  They will clear up the age business....treat him as an adult....and charge with murder.  Max that he can get is 20 years in prison. They might try to research his period in Germany and see if any other crimes pop up.

The question remaining is how many more cases exist like this?

For me, I would be curious how you get a 10-year sentence in Greece and only serve 18 months to be released, but I guess the Germans won't dig into that tiny detail.  

More on the Freiburg Murder

About two weeks ago, I chatted about a murder suspect down in the Freiburg area....17-year-old Afghan kid.  Through DNA analysis....he's suspected of killing a young medical student a month prior in Freiburg.

At the time, I suggested that his age might be questioned and maybe he's older than 17....meaning he'd go through an adult case and face twenty years....instead of ten years.

The prosecutor said a day after I wrote my essay....that things all confirmed out and his identity and age weren't an issue.

Well....Stern magazine has done some digging.

There's this attack back in 2013....on the isle of Corfu (Greece) that involves this guy "Hussein K".  The thing is....they caught this Afghan guy....who at the time said he was 17 years old, and sentenced him to ten years in prison.  According to Stern's info (still to be questioned)....this Corfu "Hussein K" and this Freiburg guy....are the same person.

How is this possible?  Either he escaped (unlikely), got bought out (possible), or there's a bunch of these Hussein K's with the same passport and age listed, and it's just a forgery episode (very possible).  But the odds of two guys buying this passport copy and both having murdered young women?  That gets the odds way up there.

The local paper there in Freiburg (Badische Zeitung) says the cops are onto this deal and checking out the Greek story.

If it is the same guy?  It means he's definitely 20 years old.....maybe older. This will open up some public speculation that there might be more fake passports out there....with people pretending to be teenagers when they aren't.

A Icelandic Summary on Elections

I follow elections around Europe.  At the end of October, the Isle of Iceland had their parliamentary election.

There are 63 seats in the parliament, and once you cross the five-percent point as a party....you get a chance at a percentage of seats.  If you don't have 51-percent of the seats....then you as the leading party must form a coalition.  Maybe it takes two parties....maybe three....maybe four.

This election in late October has been probably one of the more odd elections in European history.  The top party to get votes got their period to form a government, and failed.  The second-place party?  They also had a chance to form a government and failed.  The Pirate Party, in third place was given a chance to form a government, and yesterday....failed.

There will be a day or two to discuss this but the odds are heavily favored that another election will occur by the end of February.

How does something like this occur?

In this case, seven parties got five-percent or more....which is a fairly high percentage if you think about it.  In addition, five other parties were in the election but failed on the five-percent deal.  In fact, the Humanist Party (anti-capitalist and about as far left as you can get)....took 33 votes of the 195,000 (almost eight percent of the nation voted, which is kinda high).

The seven parties?

- The Independence Party (center-right)

- The Green Party

- The Pirate Party

- The Progressive Party (mostly centered on farmers and their agenda)

- The Reform Party (basically a pro-EU group, with a Green agenda, with a differing medical coverage plan which is half-nation coverage and half-co-pay)

- The Bright Future Party (left of center)

- The Social Democrats Party (left of center).

When you analyze the numbers....what you have is one single party that got around 29-percent of the vote.  After that....the second place winner took 16-percent.  The third-place winner took 14.5-percent of the vote.  The four remaining parties took five to eleven percent.

It's hard to assemble a coalition in this type of situation.  For the Independence Party....they would need at least two partners.....maybe even four partners.  When you look at mostly a right-of-center theme.....they have no real chance.

When you look at the Green Party....they would need four partners.

As the Pirate Party gave up.....they needed four partners and weren't going to get it.

So what happens in the second election?  Anyone's guess.  Maybe the same results.  Maybe two parties might see a reason to merge in the next two weeks and combine their votes for 20-percent opportunity in this next election.

This is the problem with a multi-party situation.  Once you say a coalition has to be formed, and the top party doesn't get 35 to 45 percent of the vote....it starts to invent not just one partner, but maybe two or three.  Then it gets harder to agree on cabinet posts....legislation....and boundaries for the parties to co-exist.

How to Explain "Safe Spaces" to a German

At least once a week, I have some German who wants some expression or some recent happening to be explained....in some way that makes "German-sense" (like common sense but enlightening).  I've started to think about this ahead of time....like in the way I wrote the piece on how Hillary lost.  So I've started to contemplate the concept of safe spaces which have gotten wide play in the US news, and how it can be explained.

I would imagine the German would ask....what the heck are safe spaces?  Are these like places where you'd go in a tornado or hurricane?  Well....no.

Are these places to go if someone were to be shooting an assault rifle or pistol?  No.

Are these places to go if someone is swinging a knife or machete?  No.

Are these places to go if some gang guy is threatening to kill you?  No.

Are these places to go if your dad kicked you out of the house one night for stupid behavior?  No.

So you'd stop the German at this point....raising a finger, and start to lay out the landscape.

You start with the simple identification of this being a university situation....not some bar in an urban area, or some local town park, or some special building in a Memphis low-income area.

Then you lay out that a fair number (probably in the two-percent range but let's be realistic.....no one ever collects statistics on this stuff to talk reliably)....of university students have arrived and are used to a certain lifestyle....a certain number of political agendas....a certain list of topics to be discussed, and when something comes up that isn't on the accepted list....they are extremely upset.

Your German associate might say that German kids leave home and go to German universities, and they don't have safe spaces.

Well....yeah....that's true.

But this group of American kids....probably two-percent of them....have a bold new world in their mind which cannot be identified as "real".  Their world is a combination of fantasy, dreams, and fake politics.

The German will be in some state of disbelief that America has produced tens of thousands of young immature kids who can't handle reality?  Yeah.

So the German will ask....what happens when they graduate?  This is where you lay out the future. These young college-degreed individuals will go out to hospitals, Fortune-500 companies, and foundations, and become part of some new society.  A society which can't handle frustrations. They will come to Germany to work on negotiations, science projects, or business proposals.  Germans will state facts, and suddenly find some American on the other side of the table who is doing some kind of weird act....like they can't handle the discussion.  Then the guy will ask the German at the table....do you have a safe space for me to retreat to?

My suggestion....to end this whole explanation to your German associate....is to respond to the American idiot asking about a safe space....just say "sure".  Take the poor guy or gal to a German pub....ask for a one-liter stein of beer, and start talking about Kaiser Wilhelm, Kase Kuchen (cheese cake), soccer teams, German wars against France, or fake German intellectual topics.  In thirty minutes, the American will calm down to some degree.  Buy him or her a second one-liter stein of beer, and then just dump them off at the hotel (it only takes two steins to get the typical American drunk).  After two or three of those experiences.....the American will lose this safe space gimmick and just learn to drink beer and do pub-talk when frustrated.

ZDF's Fake News Story

I sat and watched the late news on German TV last night....via ZDF.   The leading story?  Fake news.  Of course, they used a lot of graphics of Breitbart....hyping fake news.

So, this morning....I picked up the top ten stories listed out of Europe for Breitbart:

1.  REVEALED: Latest Brexit Challenge Launched by Tax Dodge, Pro-EU, Celeb Lawyer.  Breitbart took a minimum of three sources (all legit newspapers in the UK) to tell this story of another legal challenge on BREXIT.  The new challenge?  Well...yeah, the guy is a celebrity lawyer, pro-EU and has had at least one tax run-in.  Fake news?  No.

2. British PM Crows About Banning Pamela Geller from UK During Pro-Israel Event.  What Breitbart did was take a speech reported by a conservative group in the UK, given by the PM (May) and how she hyped up a pro-Israel reporter on "Islamophobia".  It was a tit for tat type writing,  It does go into detail about this effort to limit any criticism on Islamic stories in the UK.  Fake reporting?  No.

3. UK Pair Linked to Brussels and Paris Attacks Suspect Jailed.  It was a straight up and down story....two guys with terror issues, crimes charged, and they were sentenced on Monday to eight years in prison. No speculation.  No real drawn out piece....just the facts over the two guys.  Fake news?  No.

4. Oxford Students Told to Use ‘Ze’ Instead of ‘He’ or ‘She’.  An amusing story.  Breitbart picked up a story which started with the Daily Mail.  This turned into more of commentary than reporting.  So they interviewed a Canadian professor who suggested this wasn't exactly a brilliant idea to start some trend toward new pronouns.  Fake news?  No.

5. Nativity Scene Could Offend Muslims, Priest Says.  The basis for this Breitbart story started out from an Italian newspaper source (legit local paper in the town of the priest).  Some local priest commented and a story was written up in Italy (out of a town in the northern part of 70,000 residents)....that some foreigners might be easily offended by nativity scenes.  The priest hyped up that no Catholic or Italian should step back from local traditions.  Breitbart simply picked up the original story....added commentary by two political folks (one opposing the priest, and one supporting)....and retold the same story.  Fake news?  No.

6.  Calais Child Migrants Are Being Lost to Prostitution and Slavery in the UK.  This is a story that Breitbart picked up from the Sunday Times (again, a legit news source).  What they get at in the story is that 700-plus kids from the Calais area (the French migrant camp which was recently torn down)....have disappeared more or less from public view, and some charity groups think they've been brought into prostitution and slavery.  Of course, there is no proof of what the charity groups suggest.  But Breitbart took their comments and simply published them as quotes.  There are at least ten facts placed into the story but it revolves around a questionable theme....are the Calais child migrants "lost"?  No one....not even legit news organizations or the French government....can answer this.  Fake news?  It's a news story stuck between fact and fiction.  No one can say where the lost kids are.....so they assume the worse.

7. Cologne Ramps up New Year’s Police Presence after Sex Assaults.  Breitbart simply took what has been generally reported in the last week for Koln over preparation for the New Year's Eve episode.  It's a fact-based story.  No hype, just simply what the city and cops have acknowledged in public. Fake news?  No.

8. New Catholic ‘Go’ App Locates Nearest Priest for Confession.  Breitbart took three sources of information....one of which was a techno-geek site....to tell this simple story.  Yes, there's an app to help you find a priest and have a confession done.  There's about a dozen facts built into the story, which simply leaves the reader with the idea that the Catholic Church has entered a bold new era.  Fake news?  No.

9. UKIP Vows to Fight Local Government Union Flag Removal Order.  This story starts out at Yourthurrock, an internet news site.  They take the basis of the story....where some local council in the UK got into a fight over removing their Union Flag from display.  It is a local problem only but has drawn a lot of "fight" from the local community.  The word "Nazi" got uttered by some folks who are hyped up over the business.  Fake news?  No, but it only revolves around one single community.

10.Italian Schoolchildren Put Hitler’s Mein Kampf In Top Ten Favorite Books.  So, this story starts out in Italy.....via The Local.IT.   They took it from an Italian newspaper.  So it is a repeat of a repeat of a repeat.  The theme of this story is that Italian school kids were asked about their favorite books, and they put Hitler's Mein Kampf on the list.  Naturally, the intellectual folks asking this question and wanting to generate interest in reading.....were upset.  True story?  A poll was requested, and kids responded.  Naturally, I'm guessing the kids were mostly going to pull the leg on the intellectuals and make this more of a joke.  Breitbart simply told the raw story itself.  If you notice from all of these news groups....none actually went and asked the kids about the book, or posed questions to prove that none had actually read the book.  Fake news?  Well....a poll was taken, results taken, and end-result reported.  It's a stupid story, but it's not fake.

So, for ZDF? To sit and use Breitbart might be a bad move as their chief example.  From the roughly twenty stories I read over this morning....I'd say that only two had questionable sources.  The rest were legit newspapers or stories.  Did half of the stories really qualify to be read?  Well....no.  If you ask me....half of the twenty stories had entertainment values only.  But that's the same issue with ZDF or ARD.....at least half of their stories are filler material or simply entertainment value.

What I would worry about...is that if you bring Breitbart up enough with Germans....that will provoke an curious nature and trigger them into reading some of the stories.  They might figure out the whole fake "fake" news story agenda and go back to ZDF/ARD, and ask more questions.  You can dig at some fake stories but there's a limit.

The Journalism Story

The Standard....a Austrian news publication....put out an interesting piece.  The Press Council of Austria....which is a club of sorts for all members of the press....to hang out, establishing new trends in news reporting....has come to produce an odd checklist.  It's a checklist suggesting the way that you report on refugee stories.

What is contained within this is the idea that news stories are emotional and filled with controversial themes.  The public reacts to the way that you write the story.  So, you before you write this....you should ask some questions:

- "Would I report on a misconduct even if it was not set by a foreigner / asylum seeker / migrant?"

- "Have I researched the subject sufficiently, my sources go beyond mere (Internet) rumors?"

- "Have I presented those facts that are necessary for a comprehensive and balanced presentation of my subject?"

- "Have I checked whether my reporting / my word choice / my photo selection prejudices are reinforced?"

- "Have I examined whether I can omit information that might stir up prejudices without altering the meaning and truthfulness of the story or affecting the understanding of the readers?"

- "Have I checked whether certain information does not counteract other intentions (eg no mention of origin, but naming a first name for a foreigner)?"

- "Did I consider whether my reporting / my word choice / my photo selection someone could be offended or offended?"

- "Am I aware of the intentions of my guides / research sources?"

- "Can I open an Internet forum on the subject without fear of the discussion being derailed?"

-  "Am I certain that I have no extra-journalistic reasons to take up this issue?"

(source: Standard, APA, 29.11.2016)

The thing is....after you examine these ten questions....why limit it to only immigration and refugee stories?  Why not ask myself about the intentions of political insiders passing me stories for publication?  Why not think about the photo of foreign leaders that I might use and why it might be a very unflattering picture?  Might I tell an woeful economic story which would stir up anger with the general public?

Then I come to this curious question at the end of this piece....can I tell a story that won't be derailed by the general public and revamped into an entirely different discussion.  Yeah....you built a story to focus on one single story and one single discussion, and oddly....some lobby group, focus group, or just one single individual takes your story and asks another question of a different variety?  If you have such an irrational fear....then don't write a story.

Fake news?  No.  The source is at the top and embedded.  You can read the story yourself.

If you were a junior reporter in Austria, then your boss would bring to the pub after work.....read off the ten questions, and give you a brief summary of what you should or should not write. You'd look at this and just figure....why bother writing a single story on refugees....positive or negative....because it'll just bring in three or four peer reviews on a story and make this into a time-consuming process.  Just write about beer, horse-racing, fancy fashion trends, and ski-trips to Italy.  Make it simple.

All of this will simply make a normal guy look at any story told, and ask if filters were used to lessen the story.  Did you get the full story, or did some guy use the 10-question filter to remove half the information? It's a sad trend, if you ask me....but a sign of the times.

The Koln 31 December 2015 Landscape

We are approaching the one-year point of the Koln New Year's Eve episode and the harsh reality that occurred that night.  I've probably read at least three-hundred news pieces and watched a dozen hours of coverage over the last year.  I've come to seven basic observations.

1.  The 'bad boys' who are at the center of this story....simply are young males....mostly from Northern Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia).  The rest are oddball migrants who simply got caught up in the frenzy of the night.  Alcohol in some way helped to fuel the behavior.

2.  Cop placement from that night?  There was one contingent of reserve cops that could have been added but they were in Bavaria because of the ongoing crisis that existed at the time. Even if those cops had been there.....I don't think it would have mattered.  If you read through everything....there were probably around a hundred cops in a 300 meter by 300 meter area.  They worked in pairs or groups so....they never had a chance to establish authority.  The over-reaction now?  There will be a total of 2,000 cops, firemen, private security folks....put into this same area.  The same area will be mostly blocked off and you have to enter via a gate (meaning a security review). NO fireworks will be allowed into that center area.

3.  The odds of half of the public that commonly comes out....staying home?  Most women who were out last year in Koln....will refuse to celebrate downtown, and it'll be noticed.  I would bet on the crowd being at midnight around the Dom and railway station being less than 10,000 people.

4.  The real insult?  Even with 600 police reports and various folks detained who were found with no passports or visas...nothing much has seemed to happen.  The cops stand there....knowing that they've done all that they can.  The legal system is shaken.  Trust in the legal system within the NRW state is not what it was a year ago. All of this will have political implications for the spring state election.

5.  Blame?  Here's the thing after you examine the whole episode.  They were prepared to handle a regular New Year's Eve celebration, with normal expectations.  Behind that....for months (more than a year), there were little things going on that should have been noticed.  The crime syndicate that exists now around the railway station....for drugs or pick-pocket activity....the snatch-and-go crimes for cellphones....the increase in robbery....etc.  The state authorities and cops won't call this area of town a "no-go" area...mostly because it's the heart and soul of the city and half-a-million people will transit the area daily.  But it's become some zone where you have to watch everything going on and view people around you as a 'threat'.  If you were looking for a place where you need to dump 300 cops upon for an entire month and ramp-up judicial behavior control....this would be the place to do it.

6.  Why Koln?  A lot of Germans didn't understand this part of the story.  There is a "key" (an index) used to establish where refugees and asylum seekers are "assigned" upon entry.  Sixteen states....so NRW ranks near the top and gets more assigned immigrants than any other state.  The incoming crowd considers Koln, Essen, and Dusseldorf as key points to live around as an urban magnet for jobs.

7.  Repeat potential?  I think with all the rules and security put into this upcoming New Year's Eve....it'll be so tightly controlled that most Germans will just say 'no', and skip any celebration downtown. It might go as low as one-third of the normal crowd showing up.  Some may stay home....some may take a local train up to Munster instead.

Here's the thing....this one single event changed the perception of probably half of German society.  Suddenly, the Merkel open-door vision was not very charming or acceptable.  The view of state-run or public TV....ARD and ZDF....went down a notch because of their delayed reporting on what occurred.  The cops and legal authority have suffered some serious trust issues.

Life goes on but it's a harsh reality that was laid out in Koln for that one evening.

An Icelandic Refugee Story

In the middle of last week....at some refugee center in Vioines, Iceland.....after a guy who had applied for 'status' had been turned down....he poured some gas over himself, and lit a match.  Burned to some degree but still alive, in the regional hospital.

There's been some criticism of the Icelandic bureau which manages these evaluations and the refugee center.  Some blame dump upon them because of the lengthy process and the negative outcome.

One might point out that while they had declined to approve his application....they had gotten another country to accept him (Italy).  He considered Italy a worse-off point to be placed.

So I sat and pondered over this entire story, and the process involved.

If you are an immigrant, an asylum-seeker, a migrant in search of a new country.....the minute they have you an application and you fill it out.....you are taking a chance that the end-result will be "no".  Statistics will exist in each country and if you ask.....they will admit to certain types of applications as being better than 50-percent, or worse-than 50-percent.  If you aren't capable of handling a negative result....then it's your problem, not the government's problem.

The public who get a disturbed about turn-downs?  There is a process for every single application for asylum, immigration or migration.  If you ask about the process.....the people who run this will bring out a flow-chart.  It'll give you the fifteen to forty-odd points that you pass through.  They might evaluate your education, your intelligence, your past crimes, your reason for leaving, etc.  A number will be assigned to this review.  If you reach a certain level, then you get a visa and a chance to stay.  If you don't.....you leave.

For those who get all peppy and charged-up about people should all get a chance to remain....reality may come to you two years down the road.  You might find out that the hundred people who should have failed the application....who stayed....have yet to pass the language course, and they still don't have a real job....just some fake job deal that the government rigged up so they can get a basic existence check each month.  Then you ask yourself.....who is really paying for their house, their heat, the food, and medical care?  You.  Quietly, without saying anything.....the government found another tax to bring in the money to cover their existence.

Mad at the government and the approval bureau?  Some Icelandic folks may have commentary to make....so....fine.  Fire your political folks.  Have an election and dump these folks out and find the "right" folks to run this.  Then re-arrange your priorities to accept people.

In the German case of the BaMF, the 700-person agency who did the applications for asylum.  By the summer of 2015, reality came to raise its ugly head.  The agency, which could typically handle 250,000 people a year and your waiting time was usually less than 90 days....was now taking six to nine months. They had a lack of people to handle the processes involved.  My guess is that Iceland has the same issue.

At this point, I looked at this shelter location.....Vioines.  I've been to Iceland and have a general layout of the country.  Most folks....probably 75-percent of the nation....reside on the far west side of the country, or along the SW coastline.

Vioines sits on the far north coast of Iceland.  A remote and austere location.  There's not much there.  You've got mountains on two sides, the bay laying off three miles to the north, and state road 767 (a marginally paved road) which goes by the unpaved road which leads out to the small village of Vioines....basically four buildings.

For an American standing there on the paved part of 767....if you were to do a 360-degree turn....you'd think that you'd come to the ends of the Earth.  There's flat farming land for about a mile in each direction, and then these majestic glacier-like mountains.  Calm, quiet, and a continually wind....365 days out of the year.  In the winter months, you'd enjoy an hour or two of sunshine, and 22-odd hours a day of darkness.  In the summer months, you'd enjoy an hour at best of darkness, and twenty-three hours a day of sunshine.

The nearest town with any real appearance of civilization?  About thirty minutes away, with three to four thousand people.  A couple of grocery operations, some stores, a brewery, a small hospital, etc.  A place to sit down and have a coffee or a dinner?  You'd go to the Hard Wok Cafe (yeah, note the wording, must be an Icelander with a sense of humor).

There's nothing there.  For this guy....sitting there for months and months, one might imagine that he'd come to mental state where he wasn't really thinking like most people.  The long summer with almost no darkness, and winter approaching with almost no sunshine...it can get into a guy's head and make him think in a negative way.  What can you do all day?  You might ride a bike over to the local town....sip a coffee....play a couple hours of cards....and watch four hours of TV.  Repeat this....day after day....for six months.

There's a long story here, but no matter how you tell it....it's bound to be negative in the end.

Postfaktisch?

There's a German language group which meets once a year to put up various newly created words, which were hyped over the past twelve months, and they pick the word-of-the-year.  So in 2016, "Postfaktisch" was selected.  "BREXIT" was number two.

Postfaktisch?  To be honest, I can only remember one single time in 2016 that I heard the word....some presentation in October with Chancellor Merkel.

Meaning?  It's where "the facts" are laid in a public discussion or chat forum, and ultimate decision by the public.....are ultimately determined less by actual or real facts.....more so by emotions and personal opinions.

As you stand there and pause over this thought....it'll slowly hit you....it's where fake topics, fake agendas, fake chat points, fake news....all takes something into a discussion, and they all have an impact on you to pick a side which probably isn't the side with facts.  Or at least the German intellectuals who own the word seem to think this.

If you just had the facts....you'd step to the right side and make wise decisions.  Simple....would you not admit?

Well, no, it's not that simple.

Most news or stories exist with a couple of facts.  The bulk of a news item or story is simply filler material....historical commentary....personal opinion....slanted chat....etc.

I'll give you a couple of examples of this false Postfaktisch talk:

1.  Every year in Germany, as Hiroshima Day (6 Aug) or Nagasaki Day (9 Aug) occurs, there's this long presentation on Channel One or Two.  The basis is the bad USA used nukes in a inhuman way, and that there potential talks of peace about to start.  Germans have viewed this yearly for thirty-odd years and most all of them have fallen into the "Postfaktisch pit".

The angle of this emotional appeal is that some negotiation was about to start and therefore there was no need for the bombs to be dropped.  Then you turn to one simple fact....after the leaflets of the Potsdam Conference were dropped over Japan, the Prime Minister (Suzuki).....said that surrender was not possible.  It's a simple fact that peace negotiations were not going to be engaged.  After the bombs, negotiations were possible.

Personal opinion written into the German angle on this story?  Yeah.

2.  The 31 December 2015 Koln New Year's Eve sexual assaults.  Six hundred sexual assault police reports were turned into the police and recorded.  One city....one evening.  You can't find another episode like this over the past sixty years in Germany (since the war ended).  The massive bulk of these police reports all go to non-Germans.

Is there a problem in Koln?  Over and over, by the local authorities, political players, and police comissioners....no, there is no problem.  A few mistakes were made but Koln is a safe place.

The simple fact is that 600-plus police reports indicate that sexual assaults or groping occurred in a very short period of time on one particular night.  You can slant this anyway you want.....public opinion goes to the direction that there is something wrong. Some people have failed in their oath to protect people.  Personal opinion written into the various stories to limit commentary over that evening?  Yes, it appears so.

3.  Why has refugees and asylum in Germany been a limited topic for the past 11 months?  Well, it goes to one simple fact.  Germany and the EU sat with Erdogan and promised two things (all facts and no debate).  First, roughly 3 billion Euro would flow from the EU to Turkey to pay for taking care of refugees there.  Second, that entry into the EU for Turkey would be discussed and that a free-visa situation would eventually come out of this for Turks.  These are facts, with no debate.

In a Postfaktisch world, Germans believe with their opinion that the entire mess with the refugees has been halted.  In essence though, Erdogan of Turkey simply holds back the flow until it is an opportune moment and will release the flow of refugees...into Greece and onto Germany.  If the EU doesn't follow through with EU entry or the free-visa deal, the entire thing falls apart.

4.  The populist discussion.  Ever since BREXIT and the vote....German journalists and political players have hyped up the populist topic.  What facts exist for this topic?  It's very limited. You can bring up actual elections in Italy and the UK, plus the US Presidential election.

The problem is that in a democracy (doesn't matter what variety...whether US, French, German or Swiss).....you always come back to each person's single vote.  Ever since democracies were "invented", they are all tied to a populist view.  You can pretend democracies are safe, sheltered, and free from danger....but it's mostly personal opinion on your current status and whether you fit that profile or not.

Postfaktisch is a gimmick....pure and simple.  It gives you political leverage to pull this 'tool' out and use it in public forum and make people think that personal opinions can only be made with facts.  The attitude is that you can't use a sway-factor or emotions in this moment of decision. Yet the guy talking and using all this Postfaktisch-chatter....is pulling on your emotions and using a maximum amount of sway-factor to get you to his or her side.

Postfaktisch is like fake news.  It's just a tool to persuade you.  Nothing else.

Two Shows to Recommend

I sat and watched around two hours of Channel Two (ZDF) last night.  The Germans put on an interesting balance of coverage, polls, facts, perceptions, and reality.....over crime, refugees, immigrants, etc.

The first show was a documentary which had been put together....entitled "More Foreigners, More Crime?".  You can actually download the 44-minute episode.

They actually did dig into actual data, talk to a lot of authorities, and present one of the better fact-checking events of the year.

Not all immigrant groups fall into the crime category, and they establish that fair number of young men came with wishful thoughts and found that there wasn't some golden key to open every door.

They also talked to a minor degree on Koln, and what happened on 31 December 2015.  You can attribute the chaos and sexual assaults to several things done wrong by the juvenile-like behavior of foreigners in the city and the lack of law enforcement.

The piece is entirely in German but there's lot of data and polls included in this, and it shows the direction of the public and why crime is one of the top three topics of politicians at present.  The public doesn't believe they are safe....especially in highly urbanized areas.

After that show, came Frontal-21....an investigative 44-minute show which went into massive analysis of the Koln 31 December 2015 episode.  Virtually every single thing of significance is laid out in detail.  Again, it is downloadable and you can watch the whole thing (in German).

The thing is.....all of this happen 11 months ago.  It's taken to this point to analyze the heck out of this and present a balanced story which details where the city and police screwed up, how this crowd went into a crazed-like behavior, and why people think it's a massive problem.

The two shows went the extra mile and gave some of the best analysis of crime and fear in Germany to date.  If you are wondering why Germans grumble about safety, or shake their heads over foreigners in Germany....the two programs will tell the entire story.

Some migrants and "visitors" deserve the blame.....some don't.  Probably over 95-percent of migrants, refugees, and immigrants are law-abiding people.  Statistically, I would take a guess that out of the 82-million Germans or residents....there's roughly 150,000 who are working hard to rob you....pick-pocket you while you transit to work today....steal your car.....or sell you LSD, Heroin, or meth.  In the old days....this crime element would have been all German.  Today?  An extremely large portion are non-Germans (Eastern European, Gypsy, North African, Middle East, Russian).

German society has figured out the landscape, and they don't like it.

ARD and Criticism

The majority of Germans get their dose of news via ARD's 8PM nightly news....a 15-minute segment which takes roughly 20 items and encapsulates them into a 20-to-120 second piece each.

The "Tagesschau" is an odd dynamic to German culture.  If something appears on Tagesschau....it's absolute fact (regarded as such by German society).  If it doesn't appear on Tagesschau....well, it's not important or deemed non-news.

By Saturday morning....if you follow commercial news (newspapers, RTL, etc).....they were reporting the arrest in Freiburg of the guy accused of the murder of Maria L....which had been a big deal down in the southwestern region of Germany for the past month.  The accused?  A immigrant from Afghanistan....17 years old.....coming into Germany in 2015.

The essentials of the case?  Maria L was a 19-year-old student who was raped and killed on 16 October.  DNA evidence was enough to give the cops a chance of solving the case. This case was widely reported across the nation via print-media, on-line media and television media....well, up until they caught the murderer.

The thing is....for all the great hype and talk by journalists who work for ARD/ZDF (tax-payer funded by the monthly media tax)....they avoided the story.  It didn't get reported by ARD's Tagesschau until Monday night.  It's generally perceived by a fair number of Germans that they avoided the story because it is an anti-immigrant type story.  Most remember the 31 December 2015 episode in Koln, where various sexual assaults occurred (well over 500 police reports for that evening), and how ARD/ZDF waited days (almost a week) to finally report what was a large segment of immigrants involved in the sexual assaults.

I read through a couple of pieces....mostly from non-ARD sources (Focus for example, and a local regional paper from the region).....which had some harsh criticism to be dumped on ARD management.

Oddly, the original talk from ARD was that this was just a regional event and they don't always cover regional events.  It was a lousy comment because you can go through a normal news piece and find three or four regional events reported almost nightly.

Lack of trust?  The thing is....you continually see ARD and ZDF "shoot themselves in the foot" over stupid behavioral decisions like this.  News is news.  Unless you work for ARD or ZDF, where they will decide when to bless something to be news.

While people sit around and do all kinds of public chat forums on fake news.....no one seems to want to pull these out into the public forums....discussing the tight control of news.  A growing public perception is that anything that is negative about immigrants or migrants....won't be reported by state-run TV.

This all goes back to my theme of having to read or view forty-odd news sources a day because if you just stick with one or two....you might be getting censored news or some half-fake news piece.

A Long Cold Bus Ride

Yesterday, I did my daily public bus ride into Wiesbaden.  By mid-day, I'd finished up my business, and was ready to take the bus back....it's a 25-minute ride.

For those who aren't aware....temperatures over the last couple of days have dropped.  By mid-day yesterday, it was -3C (26.6 F).   Yeah....fairly cold.

So I stood and waited ten minutes for the bus.  It arrived and I entered the forward part of the double-bus.  It's a bus unit with an extended trailer attached onto the rear.  Wiesbaden has a lot of them.  You can haul roughly 100 people with this type of bus.  When you look at it.....there's really two cabins, and this middle "hall" where four to six people could stand between the two bus units.

I board in the forward area, and it's really max'ed out....every seat taken and three or four people standing.  I look toward the rear cabinet.....just five or six people there....tons of empty seats.  I make my way back there.

Oddly, as I pass this middle "hall", there's this change in temperature.  The forward part of the bus was probably around 16 to 18 C (62 F)....decently warmed.  The rear of the bus....-3 C (26.6 F).  No heat.

This is one of those nit-picky things on public transportation in Germany.  It's possible to enter a bus or train in the summer, with the temperature soaring well above 33 C (91 F) and find that the AC units just aren't chilling and that you've got maybe 30 minutes before you start to feel some element of heat exhaustion.  Or, you can ride the public buses or trains in mid-winter, and discover that the heat units aren't working with the temperature below freezing.

I figured I could survive the 25-minute ride.   Then we took off, and you could feel this breeze going through the cabin of the bus.  Chilled air coming in.  No windows open.  I'm at a loss to figure out what's open and allowing a fair amount of air into the cabin area. Yep, -3C (26.6 F) and a breeze.  Through town, it was bad.  Then we left the city limits and the bus picked up steam.  By minute 20 of this experience, I finally got up and moved toward the front of the bus where it was still fairly warm, and just stood there for the last bit of the trip.

It's a somewhat rare experience....maybe once or twice a winter, you go through this.  In the summer, maybe once or twice a week....you will experience the AC breakdown episode.

Some people will probably note that they've ridden Bulgarian buses which simply had two buttons....absolute maximum heat....at a toasty 33 C (91 F) in the winter (where you sweat in December) or absolute maximum air conditioning at a chilled 18 C (62 F) in July (where you need a jacket on a really hot day to survive the bus ride).

These are the little things in life that you tend to notice.  Thirty years ago....none of the German buses had AC units, and half had some minimum heat function that gave you the barest essential element of heat....just enough.

Thankfully, some warm front starts to move through tonight, so I won't have to think about this much.

2017: The Snowden Year

At some point last Thursday....members of the joint German government (CDU/CSU and SPD parties) sent an appeal to the German Federal Supreme Court.

The subject?  They've been ordered by the court to allow Edward Snowden to testify to the Bundestag.

For these political parties....this ordered situation could trigger a massive problem.  By handing an entry visa to Snowden....it opens the door that Snowden will ask for asylum once in the country.  It also opens the door for the US to ask for Snowden to be turned over.  The hint by the original order is that the court ordered the country to find some method to avoid handing Snowden over to the US.  I'm guessing that the political folks have reviewed the hundred-odd ways of doing this and not found a single method that works.

The Linke Party?  They are the opposition to this and all charged up to bring Snowden in and confront the US.

If you were looking for a scene to totally put both the SPD and CDU into a dismal position....this Snowden episode is a five-star possibility.

The US could drag out the extradition treaty and note that Germany isn't prepared to carry out their actions.....so why bother honoring the treaty?

Triggering a confrontation on NATO actions?  That could be an additional step.

Trump could simply deny any visits to Germany, and visit virtually everyone in Europe and avoid any relations or visits with the Germans....making this all look pretty stupid.

Me?  If I were the Germans, I would load the Bundestag on some cruise boat and take them all up to Saint Petersburg....and ask Snowden to come on-board the cruise boat.  Once he says no....then you've finished the task.

I think if I were German government....I'd ask the judges involved in this whole thing to read the extradition treaty and ask how you legally avoid it.

The odd feature of this episode is that the Chief Prosecutor for the Merkel government....is a SPD member.  The Foreign Minister?  He's also a SPD member.  Both would have to stand there and absorb a massive amount of criticism in carrying out this order.

This is one of the five or six episodes which could affect the 2017 election outcome.

My Trip Through Frankfurt

Yesterday (Sunday), I ended up going to a Christmas concert in Frankfurt, at the old Opera Haus.

Since I'm not all happy driving into Frankfurt.....I made the decision to take the local train from near my village....into the heart of Frankfurt (the Hauptbahnhof)....the main station.  It's a 37-minute ride.

When you arrive in Frankfurt....you are at least two hundred feet below the surface and deep under the station itself.  You have to walk through a couple of tunnels to reach the level for your next leg of the journey.

So I'm walking along and here are three German guys on some sleeping bag....laying on the side of the tunnel, and preparing their next hit of heroin.  They've got the syringes and getting things all prepared.  Yeah....there's probably a dozen Germans a minute walking by the three guys.....watching this....and they keep walking.

Back in 1978, when I first got to Germany....you could walk through any part of the train station in Frankfurt, and you didn't have stuff like this.  Cops were around....the station management wanted to keep things clean. In the mid-1980s....you could see changes coming.  By the early 1990s....with the Wall gone and cops looking the other way....hard-core drug usage got introduced into Frankfurt.

If you regularly use the Frankfurt station....on a weekly basis....you will probably walk by at least five or six episodes of guys doing their drug business.  It's an accepted part of the city scene now.

No desire to fix this?  I would speculate that they've discussed the matter and came to the conclusion that if you flush the rats out of this tunnel....they will simply move to another tunnel, or eventually to the nicer neighborhoods of Frankfurt, or perhaps even next to the Messe (the show halls of the city). So, they just leave it alone and let it go.

Dangerous?  No.  Other than some guy overdosing or having a bad experience....there's not much of a danger.

So if you haven't ever seen guys doing heroin.....just take a walk through the Frankfurt subway system.

The Freiburg Murder Story

In the last two months, in Freiburg (a fair-sized town) in the south of Germany.....there's been two murders of young women.  Murder in general for Freiburg, is a rare thing.  Both of these (within a 30 km) distance kinda shocked the community of 230,000 people.

Maria L. was a student.....19 years old....and had gone to a student party.  At some point after midnight, she left alone.  They found her body in the river....enough evidence to suggest rape and murder.

Forensics did a good job and found some evidence of the guy...DNA-related.

So they went back to video cameras around the area of the party, and noted this one guy....who had the hair length that they were interested in.  No evidence that he was at the party itself....just that he was watching from a distance.

It took a bit of work, but they finally came down to this one single guy....an Afghan refugee kid (17 years old) who was living with some local German family (because he was underage)  He's been arrested and will face murder charges.

The case of the second murder?  Caroline G.?  She was jogging and never returned.  Twenty-seven years old.

So far, the cops are still working on that case, and they are looking at notes to see if maybe this Afghan kid might have been involved in this.  The one issue is that it was 30 km away from the nurse murder.  But with train access?  It's possible that someone might prove the connection.

The odds of this Afghan 17-year-old actually being Afghan or 17-years old?  Well....this is probably going to come up sooner or later.

You see, over the past three years.....a fair number of folks entered Germany with fake passports.  Germans haven't exactly had enough qualified people or the systems to distinguish fake passports.  If someone got real suspicious....then they'd hustle up an expert and prove it one way or another.  There hasn't been a nation-wide review of the passports or nationality status.

Another issue is that there are a fair number of foreign guys who showed up and said they were under the age of 18.....some even claiming 13 or 14 years old....and issues would show up to make the case that the guy was definitely over the age of 18.  I'll wait and see on this case here.....but I might have suspicions that the guy is over the age of 18.

Where does this all lead?  The case will be talked about in local press and throughout the state of Baden-Wurttemberg.  Cops did a great job, and they may yet prove some connection on the second murder.  The thing is.....it'll drive up harsh criticism over asylum and immigration.  Questions will linger.  Lack of trust will build up.  The legal system perform as it should....but in the public eyes, neither of these murders should have happen.

So, this likely becomes a bit of discussion to be around the 2017 national election, and throw more questions on the open-door policy.  If some fraud gets dug up over the passport or the age?  It'll just intensify the the whole discussion.

German Political Landscape at the end of 2016

Channel Two (ZDF) has a political show and they do a fair amount of polling across Germany.  So last week, they did the poll on political voting (if there was an election).

With Merkel's announcement that she will be the candidate for the CDU.....the CDU now sits at 36-percent.  That's a rise of two-percent since the last time and the unknown factor if she'd run or not.

The SPD?  They slide one-percent to 21-percent.  It's a weak point for them.

The Greens?  11-percent, sliding two percent over the last poll.

The Linke Party?  Sitting at 10-percent.

The FDP?  Sitting at a flat 5-percent.  They need that as a minimum.....to make it into the Bundestag.

And the AfD?  They sit at 13-percent.

Some journalists could look at this and note that Merkel's position is strong and if some points could be trimmed off the AfD.....that this partnership with the CDU/CSU and Greens would be possible after this next national election (Sep, 2017).

Some strong hints have come from the CSU in the past month over two senstive topics.  First, they want a maximum limit on refugees per year (200,000)......which Merkel will not agree to.  This could indicate problems in the CSU sharing their Bavarian votes.  The second problem is that the CSU has strongly hinted that it really doesn't care to partner up with the Green Party.  Both of these issues would be enough to carve off the CSU vote and make it a slightly difficult election in the end.

If the CSU left?  The CDU could still win, and partner with the FDP and Greens.  The FDP and Greens would both need a strong showing....with the FDP getting a minimum of 5-percent of the national vote.  I suspect the Greens would have to have at least one or two points more than what they have now.

On the positive side.....a lot of independent voters are happier now....knowing Merkel will be the chancellor candidate for the CDU.

German Frustration with Breitbart?

I sat last night and was watching the late Channel One (ARD) news.  It's a longer edition and you will find some things mentioned which didn't get into the 8PM news.  There are also fewer people watching it.  Out of 82-million in population....I kinda doubt that they have more than two or three million watching it.

The odd featured item?  Breitbart News.

They decided to introduce Germans to Breitbart.  It was a three or four minute piece.  They obviously had started their agenda on 'fake news' and this was to be likely the first of many different news bits to readily identify fake news sites.

Extensive graphics were thrown into the report.....which typically for a normal news item.....you wouldn't do.  That was obvious.

There is a worry by not only the Berlin establishment (center-left and center-right politics), but also by journalists and intellectuals that public sentiment is swinging and they need to put some theme out there to make people question anything but their "legitimate news".

Facebook, Twitter, etc.....are all under a continuing trend by the Berlin leadership to dump 'fake news'.  The problem is that you reach a point where fake news and real news are virtually the same thing.

Oddly, as much as they are pressing forward on controlling Twitter and Facebook....it's now obvious that another platform (Gab) is about to erupt on the scene and be a source for those who are cast off away from Facebook and Twitter.  Gab will be based outside of the US and the EU.  Gab will likely over the next twelve months take approximately ten to twenty percent of the normal users away from Facebook.  The ability of the Berlin crowd and the EU to put pressure on Gab?  Other than just eliminating them from entry into the European internet....that's about it.

Breitbart in German?  No.  That's one of the odd parts to this story.  Everything they do is in English.  There is a London office.....I admit.  But so far, there's not been any interest to have a Breitbart Berlin office or bureau.  Introduction in an election year?  It wouldn't shock me.

Might Breitbart enter and start to note ARD or ZDF as fake news sites?  One might be amused, but you can probably find enough bits and pieces to make this stick to a small degree.  Then, the race is on.....who is the fakest of the fake?