What Is Elon's Troubles In The UK And France?

 Well...in France...the authorities raided X's Paris offices on 3 Feb 2026, as part of an ongoing investigation led by the Paris prosecutor's cyber-crime unit.

What they say....the probe focuses on suspected offenses including unlawful data extraction, algorithmic manipulation, political interference, and complicity in the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material and 'deepfakes'. (Don't ask me to translate deepfakes to/from French). 

What the prosecutors want?  Well...they desire for Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino for a "voluntary" interview in April.  If they fail....they'd issue a warrant and possibly seize assets.

This political?  France has a system where they can suggest that prosecutors and judges are outside of the  political control.  I'm not an expert on this....so it might be true....it be stretching the truth.

Will Yaccaino or Elon show up?  Unknown.  

The Brit issue?

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) announced a formal investigation into xAI's Grok AI tool on 3 February 2026.  Job?  To examine its potential to generate harmful sexualized images and videos, as well as compliance with personal data processing laws. 

It appears that UK authorities have restricted access to Grok's image generation features, but it also appears that users can still bypass these limits. 

Where this is going?  The PM is barely hanging on presently, and having some issues with Trump.

The odd thing with the UK situation....this investigations could continue for the remainder of 2026, and somehow.....develop into fines or operational restrictions for X and xAI in the UK.

I sat and pondered over both situations.  Elon could simply deny user abilities for both France and the UK....'dead-zone' type of operation.  This would solve the French/UK problems, and make the achievement into a major 2027 mess  to clean up.

In the UK case....the Grok image-maker...is like a van Gogh 'machine' and pure art at work....so the government's master plan of controlling 'art'....would become a 'joke'.

Arresting or detaining Musk?  I seriously doubt it.

Theater entertainment?  If you view the public sentiment of Macron and Starmer....things have evolved to a soap opera level.  

Final note....if one drags up erotic stuff, or nudies....seems like both countries have a fair amount of art on display or intellectual stuff....that have pushed the limits for 300-plus years.  Seems like things ought to start there and rid civilization of the terrible nudie stuff, or that Shakespeare BS.  

Train Story

 Regional train....near Landstuhl area (Pfalz, Germany)....had a situation where the  conductor was doing a ticket-check. 

Confrontation between one male passenger (Greek guy) and Turk-German conductor.  Passenger had no ticket.

Confrontation led to a fight....conductor dead.

Police have the passenger....will face charges.  Would assume fairly substantial and serious situation...minimum of twenty years of prison.

Fair number of Germans on social commenting....term of 'brutalization' comes up.

If you are over age 50 in Germany....you just don't remember engagements, deadly physical violence, or 'crazy stuff' in the 1980s/1990s.   

You wouldn't engage in such a conflict....over a 60 Euro fine for lacking a ticket.

Baden-Württemberg State Election (In 4 Weeks)

 Roughly 4 weeks  away....polling?

CDU is likely to win (29-percent).

Greens at 22-percent, and AfD at 20-percent.

SPD at 8-percent, and Linke at 7-percent.  FDP at 5-percent.

Likely coalition?  CDU-Greens.  

Who loses the most over 5 years?  Well...Greens and FDP....lost a serious amount of votes.

4 Feb 2026: Germany: 6 Things

 1.  Poland suggests Epstein's path....leads back to Russia (KGB)....wants to start a investigation.

I might believe 15 years into the whole 'game'...they might have started to 'buy-into' the situation.   Other angle....maybe just a couple of Oligarch guys wanted in on the action.

2.  Read through a business analysis piece....13-million Germans living on the edge of poverty.  

3.  Some BILD piece from yesterday....suggesting in 3 German states....60-percent of those on state-assistance....are non-German.

Their key point....if you have no prospects in life, then getting state-assistance makes no sense in the long run.

4.   REWE (grocery chain) regional 'boss' says in the Koln area....they have a store, and it'll close unless the state starts providing 'security'.  The landscape?  Between theft and homelessness....the particular  grocery is under daily threat.

5.  Hessen's state Minister for Education....advocating for mandatory age for social media.

Hot topic in Germany....I'm likely to believe by end of 2026....some  law will be passed....either age 15 or 16 will be mandated. 

6.  Massive snow/ice problem in the Wiesbaden/Mainz area from mid-afternoon yesterday.  Some folks required 4 to 7 hours to return home.  Weather guys kept saying  2 to 3 cm of snow....my village had about 14 cm by the end.  

The Downfall Of Asylum 'Players' Upon Arrival In Germany

 About 8 years ago...I was doing a German language class, and later a integration class....so I was hanging around Syrians, Africans, Afghans, Venezuelans and even some South Koreans.

It came up in a break-pause one day....Syrian educated guy (pharmacist trade)....we got into a English discussion.

Upon arrival in Germany with his wife, and two kids....they were put in a temp-camp (old US barracks)....for about 6 weeks.  

Daily....came the issue....young 'punks' (various countries)....going out and discovering alcohol and drugs on the streets of Germany. I asked...how'd they get the cash....he responded 'black-work'.

So he had to continually monitor his kids....keeping them away from the idiots.  

He'd go and tell the 'manager' of the stuff going, but they never responded.

Most all of the incoming folks were from  countries that had strict laws on booze/drugs.....serious punishment.  So they had no ability to control themselves.

This murder from the last week (Hamburg subway)....an example of a asylum guy....no control....consumed with boozing up  daily.

I don't think the German authorities have really leaned into this issue, or grasp it.  

2 Feb 2026: Germany: 10 Things

 1.  This AM....odd story developing. Since 2022....the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia war...many EU states imposed sanctions against Russia. Well....five guys in Germany circumvented these sanctions and supplied tens of thousands of products. Secret network, now exposed.

2.  Beer statistics....in 2025, breweries and beer warehouses sold a total of 18.9 percent, or 1.8 billion liters, LESS beer than in 2015.

Looking over my beer consumption in 2025....I probably had no more than 40 bottles (with 20 of them the .3-liter size).

3. If you go to Rome.....the Trevi Fountain was one of the ten things you had to go and see/experience.

Rome now charges two euros to enter.

4.  From RBB this AM....Security authorities for the city...speaking up of a 'hybrid' threat, with hospital operators seeing a growing risk.

Berlin hospitals have been recording an increase in suspicious incidents for months.

Combination of things: cyber attacks, drones, unauthorized persons, forced entry, etc.  Belief?  Russian KGB.

5. 'Schwarzfahrer', term used by Germans (translates to 'blackrider') for people on trains without tickets....NOW seen as discriminatory language.  

Talk now centering on inventing a new term for something that has been used for almost 100 years in Germany.

6. Last night...prime news on ARD...natural gas reserves for the nation now down to 33-percent.

7.  Josef Seitz wrote a Focus commentary....after watching the ARD (public TV) forum show last night (Caren Miosga Show).....that after a year of hyped-up worry over Trump...plus years of Ukraine-Russia war....he personally doesn't care anymore.  

Yes, the hyped-up BS.....doesn't sell anymore.

8.  Massive strike today (Monday) across a lot of Germany.  My village and city of Wiesbaden part of it.....no bus service or local rail-traffic.

9.  Across Germany....noted today....41,000 kids are repeating the first-grade (half of them...in NRW).

10.  Report this AM....nearly half-a-million people in Germany (mostly men) are members of a clan-crime 'gang'.

Report says 36 groups...13 come from Arab regions, 11 belong to the Mhallamiye community with roots in Turkey, Lebanon, or Syria. 9 have Turkish origins, 2 are Kurdish, and 1 comes from the Western Balkans.

The report suggests that they now exert influence (avoiding the term blackmail) over politicians and LE.   

Weak Dollar BS

 My wife (German in nature) wanted to  impress upon me the 'great-evil' of the US dollar being so 'weak' currently....forcing me to read a article from Handelsblatt (the German version of the Wall Street Journal).

The piece went to a anti-Trump strategy....how a weak dollar hurts the German economy,  and endangers the US.

Current balance?  One dollar buys .84 Euro.

So here's the thing....if you go back to 1960....there have been three low dollar periods: 

1971-1979: Following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the US dollar experienced significant weakness against the Deutsche Mark, with the exchange rate (DM per USD) declining from around 3.48 in 1971 to 1.83 by 1979. 

I remember 1978/1979...I was stationed in Germany, and it was obvious.

1986-1995: After the Plaza Accord in 1985, the dollar entered another major period of depreciation against the DM, dropping from a peak of 2.94 DM per USD in 1985 to a low of 1.43 in 1995. 

I was here in the early 90s....remembering that era well.

2002-2008: In the Euro era, the dollar weakened substantially against the Euro, with the exchange rate (EUR per USD) falling from about 1.06 in 2002 to 0.68 by 2008, reflecting broader dollar weakness during this period. 

I worked as a contractor in that era...here in Germany, and it reached a point where the company just said...'that's it....we got no extra money to help you with the crappy dollar'.

Looking at the three eras....we have yet to reach this absolute weak point....so the Handelsblatt folks are just talking hot-air at this point.

Social Media BS Makes You Question Things

A day ago....I chatted over the subway murder in Hamburg.  The basic story....refugee from Kenya just up and grabs the hand of a Iranian 18 year old  girl, and  yanks her with him....in front of a oncoming train...both dead.

Most locals see the guy as a nutcase (paranoid schizophrenia)....mostly the end of the story.

This AM....someone dug into the personal details of the guy.  His birthday?  1 January 2000.  Odd detail.

Was this an actual birth date (conclusively proven during registration)....well...that's not really proven.

In the reality of Germany society....if you don't have a birth certificate or state-produced identification document....you get assigned the first day of the birth year is selected as a "substitute date."

Did the German authorities go into detail about his situation and really vet the guy?  Unknown.

But there's this odd detail about this guy....he said he couldn't go back because it was too dangerous for him.  Kenya is considered politically stable, predominantly Christian, and popular among Germans.  

Roughly 80,000 Germans frequent Kenya yearly.  It's fairly safe...maybe every three years....you have a lion-attack on some tourist, or some bus flips over at a curve.

So you end up wondering....was the guy 25 years old....might he have been 30 or 40 years old?  Was his story mostly faked-up and some German bureaucratic official swamped with people and just thought....'what-the-hell', and signed off?

The real question?  How many folks exist in the German 'book'....with 1 January as their birthdate?  If your answer (out of 84-million)....is around 1-million....folks might start to question a lot of things.

1 Feb 2026: Germany: 3 Things

 1.  Last night, ARD prime news did a brief mention of the Hamburg subway murder (I mentioned yesterday AM).

I noticed that some news group had interviewed the dead guy's housing partner. The guy had been in refugee housing (almost 2 years)....was described as always aggravated....serious consumer of alcohol, and not exactly right in the head.  

2.  From that power grid situation 2 weeks ago in Berlin....a number of folks  who had the new technology heat pumps....serious damage caused and a number of units require replacement (figure minimum of 10k Euro and on up to 15k Euro).   Not sure if your normal household insurance will cover such stuff.

3. Former SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert...last year...quit the Bundestag 'business' (after 4  years of service).  Stress levels were a problem.

So  he's gotten a note from the gov't....he has at retirement age (still 30 years away)....earned a status of 800 Euro a month for his brief working period for the gov't.  He says it's a bit unfair.