Why You Might Wish For An Early Spring

 The new German Minister of Economics (Green Party Robert Habeck) came out yesterday (Friday) and said in a blunt statement....if Russia goes into a Ukraine invasion situation.....the federal government will step up and knock off the opening of the natural gas pipeline (Nord Stream II).

So the consequence likely coming?  At some point in January, I kinda expect the military situation to develop (call it a half-ass 'walk' of the Russians into a small area on the eastern coastal area of the Ukraine).  Germany will do the no-approval for Nord Stream II, and then you start to hear of lessening gas flow from the 1970s pipeline into Germany.  

Winter shortage of natural gas?  In a matter of just two to three weeks....whatever they have for back-up.....will be used up.  The alternate piplelines....from the North Sea area will be surged up, but there will be a mini-crisis to develop and the Green Party will get a fair amount of blame.

It's a scary scenario, and if you asked most Germans about their own natural gas.....they can tell you what they typically use, but they have no real idea about where it came from. 

Wishing for an early spring?  Well.....it might be something to wish upon.

The Loss of Trust

 For several weeks, up in Hamburg, Germany....the regional government had continually reported that the bulk of infected folks (from Covid).....were non-vax people.

Well....this week, if you viewed NDR (regional public TV)....there's some discussion going on, and accusations of fake information.

So, some reporters from from "Welt" and "Süddeutscher Zeitung" got active....dug through the data, and came to this conclusion....the authorities really don't have any factual data to say folks are vax'ed-up or non-vax, who end up in a ICU unit.

What's going on?  Health authorities are mandated to come to a factual point on each case of Covid.  It doesn't appear that they've gone to the point of getting such data.  Hospitals just as much in the problem?  Yeah....at least a third of the incoming Covid folks weren't drilled for the data.

Now, you can imagine yourself....bad off and laying in your apartment, with your wife or friend worried....so they call the ambulance and a crew arrives in hazmat suits to carry you to the hospital.  Your shot-record, vax-card, or cellphone?  Probably the last thing that you'd think about as they dragged you to the ambulance.

This brings you to the obvious issue.....all this fact-stuff handed out....to show the 'bad-boy' non-vax people as a problem?  You can't assume the story is true.  The fact that public TV journalists just repeated the story and never challenged this?  This is a funny element of the story.....in the end, it's the print-media journalists that just woke up and said.....you know....the story 'smells' bogus.

What happens now?  I think everyone will quietly stop jerking around on the vax-versus-non-vax element.  Maybe in a couple of months, this will be resolved, but it's going to take a while to gain trust back.

'Borrowed Time' Story

 This week, I read through a piece on Focus of a German forensic expert....who'd done around 230-odd autopsies out of Hamburg in 2020.....of Covid victims.  

It required me to put it down and ponder a good bit.

So the key elements of this story.....this guy (Klaus Puschel) normally did crime victim investigations, but 2020 erupted with a lot of Covid deaths out of the regional area of Hamburg.  At the conclusion of this effort....looking at bodies and medical history....he says basically the vast majority had previous ailments/problems (lung/heart).  

Some people knew of their problems.....some didn't know anything.  

In my own words....he lays out the case that all of the 230-odd people were living on 'borrowed time' even before Covid arrived.  Their previous ailments/problems were an open-door to Covid being severe.  

'Borrowed time' is something we tend not to think much about.

A  lot of us probably walk around for a decade or two.....having stupid health habits...smoking a pack a day....eating a pretty fatty diet....marginally working out....continually in a bad mental state, and never think much about the borrowed time factor.

What Covid has actually done, if you think about this.....it's erased the length of the borrowed time, and reset the clock.  Folks who thought they get away with a decade or two of stupid health stuff....are running out of borrowed time.  

Puschel ends his story with some advice....'stay fit'.  

New 'Boss' of the CDU Party?

 Friedrich Merz finally pushed back the pro-Merkel crowd and was elected the new party 'boss' yesterday to the CDU.

Long time coming?  You can go back around twelve years ago and view how the Merkel enthusiasts cornered him at various opportunities.  In 2020?  Same deal....he was pushed back.  Early in 2021....the Merkel-clone Laschet was the selected Chancellor candidate for the party and lost badly.  In this run for the party 'boss'?  He had basically two Merkel clones opposing him for the past two months as talks continued on.

You can more or less say the Merkel era has closed out for the party now, and things probably will progress in a different way.  

On debate style?  He has an aggressive ability and usually wins arguments.  What remains of the Merkel-clones?  I'd say five or six still hold strength in the party.  

The Thing About Test Kits

 This is a story about the quality of 'test kits' and why you have to always be skeptical of what you see or think.

Around fifteen-odd years ago in Germany.....we had a murder to occur, and the German CSI guys took out the DNA test kits and took samples.  Killer 'X' was established.  

A month or so passed.....another murder occurred.  German CSI guys did the DNA test kit sample.  Oddly enough....it matches up with Killer 'X'.

Over the course of maybe four years.....there's several  killings.....which all seem to lead to this one Killer 'X'.  In one case....a  break-in of a summer cottage, with some description of the person....the DNA kit identifies this teenage girl as Killer 'X' (suggesting from the description.....she was 15 years old).

All of this is worrying the federal police.  Maybe fifteen-odd deaths....teenage girl....killing folks.  They've invented a name for the person.....the 'phantom-killer'. 

One day....some German police detective stood up and  looked at everything.  Nothing made sense.  These were murders across Germany.  Nothing connected these in the slightest sense.  All committed by a teenage German girl?

He looked a plain regular DNA test kit.....German company.  He asks some questions.  They come to admit that they pack everything into the kit....but they don't make the swabs themselves.  He asks about that.....well, it leads to a Austrian company.

The guy drives down across the border to this swab company.  He comes to a small building.....probably not more than a dozen people working there.  The only thing they do....is make swabs.  

It's a summer day, and things are a bit hot.  He walks in and is given a tour by the 'boss'.  The 'boss' kinda indicates....they make a lot of swabs....for various folks.  At this point of the tour....some healthy Austrian gal more or less walks by....fairly sweaty and carrying a fair number of loose swabs in her hands.

The detective stood there....realizing that he'd found the 'Phantom Killer'.....it's just that she hadn't really killed anyone....she just left her DNA on the swabs.  The swabs were not pure and clean.  

So ended the case of the 'Phantom Killer'.  Up until that point, this was a five-star murder thriller.  Now it was mostly about a sweaty and lusty Austrian gal, with big hands.  

Germany and Covid: 17 Dec 2021

 1.  Omikron finally arrived in Wiesbaden (reported last night).  The deal is this....two school kids apparently have it (each going to a different school in the city).  The city health authorities gave the order for the other for all the kids in each class to do a couple of days of quarantine, then do a PCR test today.  Anyone's guess how many will test positive.  How they got it?  I would take an educated guess that both ride the city bus system and somewhere there....it got passed around.  

2.  This Covid vaccination booster (the 3rd shot) being effective on Omikron?  I sat this morning and was kinda surprised.  The German Health Minister, via Focus reporting.....hints that a 4th shot might be necessary....to get effective antibodies up to around 70-percent.  Before this stuff.....most people were thinking after wrapping up the first/second shot deal.....they had a minimum of nine months before the booster talk would occur.  While most  German senior citizens were vaxed-up around Jan/Feb 2021....the average guy/gal didn't get reached until the April-through-July period. 

3.  More stringent ban rules coming?  Well....RKI (German agency for the government that surveys numbers for the virus) did a chat about this (reported via Focus), and they suggest that the rate of decreasing numbers aren't going down fast enough.  With Christmas next week.....I doubt if any big meetings will occur....but after the 26th....there's probably a meeting or two, and some federal-state situation to offer up more ban rules.

4.  From sports news this morning, I noted that the England Premier League (big league soccer) has cancelled five games because teams couldn't field enough players to 'mount' a game (Omikron infection).  

5.  Finally, some survey was done on economic status in this Covid era.  End result?  Around 16.1-percent of German society is considered at the poverty level now.....an all-time high. 

2G Story

 A couple of weeks ago.....as the Covid numbers edged up in Germany....the virus folks and politicians sat down, and decided serious ban-rules had to occur.

So the 2G rule (vax'ed-up or recovered) had to be put into effect into each state if you were going to any kind of clothing, department or electronics shop.  NO, it didn't include grocery stores, garden shops, car parts places beverage establishments or pharmacies. 

The belief by most people (NON-political types) is that this would force people to vaccinate.  There was no science behind this or general PhD study to say people in TV shops were big-time possibilities for Covid.  

Well....today in Lower Saxony....the state court said enough.  This 2G rule isn't something in the law that you can document or say it makes legal sense. 

It's suspended now (at least in this one state).

Odds of this going to remaining 15 states?  I'd say it's a 99-percent chance.  Yeah, it is too late to make a difference....on that I will agree.  

The whole 2G/3G/2G-plus/2G-plus-plus situation?  Legal minds will probably start to ask stupid questions and eventually decide that either the Constitution has to change or this has to dismantled.  

The Hessen 350-Booze 'Rule'

 So there are some new Covid ban rules, and the curious one....once the 7-day infection rate goes to 350 or above (3 days straight)....public sales of booze is forbidden.

That means bars, restaurants, cafes, etc.....can't sell booze.

An exemption?  Well....if you sell gluhwein at a Christmas market.....that got some type of exemption.  

So if it bounced up and down for two weeks straight....349,  390, 333, 318, 400, 328, etc...?  It wouldn't trigger the 350-rule.

That's the 350 rule?  Well....NO.  If you run a dance hall, night-club, disco or brothel.....the 350 rule is invoked on you as well.  

Why 350?  Well....it's a nice round number.  Other than that....there is no science to really detail this out for someone who wants to make sense out out of this.  Personally, I would have said the rule was 353.....just to make the point that numbers don't matter that much.

If you had some lusty 10-minute session scheduled with a hooker on a 350 situation?  I guess you'd have to cancel, and just wait until we reach a 349 situation for 3 days.