Category Archives: Habeas Corpus

If I wanted to find a friend I’d buy a dog

January 24, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Bowing to excessively strict German privacy law pressure, Facebook has grudgingly agreed to allow German users to protect their email contacts from unwanted social network solicitations that could lead to possible “friendships” or other related gross infringements of privacy.

Although there are more than 10 million Facebook users in Germany, none of them appear to be particularly friendly, much less know one another, nor do they “get” the Facebood Friend Finder concept in the first place, nor want to, because we’re not kids anymore damn it and we are all perfectly aware of what these so-called “friendships” are all about and where they eventually lead to and if any one of us wanted a find a friend he or she would go to the local pound and buy a freakin’ dog like God had intended us to.

“We are pleased that we have come to a solution with the Hamburg DPA regarding concerns about Friend Finder and look forward to continue our constructive discussions and dialogue in the future,” although they weren’t particularly friendly.

Germany Pulls Out Big Guns

January 2, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The mullah regime in Tehran must be shaking in its boots now (do mullahs even wear boots?).

More than one hundred (100) prominent Germans have signed an open letter to the Iranian government calling for the release of two German journalists being held by the Iranians under the standard charge of espionage for interviewing the son of some woman down there who is going to be stoned to death for adultry–although I can’t really see why anybody would consider this being a newsworthy item or anything (the getting stoned for adultry part), but still.

The Iranians may regularly sneer in disdain at Merkel, Westerwelle and Co., but when folks like freakin’ Franz Beckenbauer get pissed off, things are going to start happening, and pronto.

And indeed, they already have. Clearly anticipating the Beckenbauer Vorstoß (foray), Iranians in the background (and there certainly seems to be a whole lot of those, don’t you think?) have convinced the woman they are about to murder to come out into the daylight for a few minutes to announce her intention to sue the journalist/spies in question for having had the audacity and/or nerve to interview her son.

And you thought Americans were litigation-happy.

“The woman who has been sentenced to death was allowed to leave her jail cell for a few hours to declare in front of western TV cameras that she would file a suit against our reporters. Does Iran really think that a strange farce like this will improve the credibility of its justice system abroad?”

Chaos must be well organized, ja?

December 29, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Germans, being born anarchists (and born Germans), are genetically programmed to be aware of how important it is that the chaotic and deteriorating world in which we live continue to degenerate, but to have it do so in an “orderly chaotic” and therefore German manner.

That is why the Chaos Computer Club, holding its 27th annual Chaos Computer Club Congress in Berlin this week, has expressed Chaos Computer Club Congress Concern Concerning the recent hacking attacks against “Mastercard und Co.” in wake of recent WikiLeaks revelations (the leaks themselves were carried out quite orderly, causing complete chaos, so they were OK).
 
It appears that these attacks are in fact against something called Chaos Computer Club “hacker ethics” and the interests of those who genuinely strive for a truly transparent society (albeit a deteriorating and chaotic one) and they kindly request that such disorderly chaotic attacks cease immediately, or something.

I tell ya, it’s a dog-eat-dog-hacker-gegen-hacker world out there.

“As the world becomes more chaotic, we can help.”

This is a ho-ho-hold-up!

December 10, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Talk about your Christmas spirit, sort of. Only this time it had more to do with the joy of taking–at gunpoint.

Is nothing sacred with this most heathen of holidays anymore? Three freakin’ Santa Clauseses robbed a supermarket in Kreuzberg yesterday and got away in their gay apparel quicker than you could say yuletide cheer.

“And don’t call da cops, lady. We know when you are sleeping. We know when you’re awake…”

Die Überfallene kam mit dem Schrecken davon.

—–

PS: And since everybody is handing out presents these days (think WikiLeaks), thanks for the link, A.K. It may be an Austrian view, but it is certainly valid here. After all, this anti-American hysteria is a global one, the one thing everybody everywhere seems to share these days:

“Da schlägt einem nämlich ein Ausmaß an Hass gegen Amerika entgegen, das jeglicher Proportionen entbehrt. Während Folter im Iran, das Umbringen von Zivilisten in Burma oder ein kleines Massaker an Christen irgendwo in der islamischen Welt diesen Postern nicht einmal einen Mausklick wert sind, wird jede nur denkbare Handlung der USA mit Tausenden von Hass-Postings quittiert, die an der psychischen Stabilität ihrer Urheber Zweifel aufkommen lassen.”

Poor victim

December 7, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , 7 Comments

You know, that heroic and hunted infowarrior, that valiant and victimized whitleblowing fighter for transparancy, that modern-day Robin Hood, uh, rapist dude?

Like wow, “they” got him already. And this before any of us had even found out that he was “the US’s public enemy no. 1,” at least as far as the Spiegel is concerned, I mean. Well sorry, I hadn’t known it yet.

But that’s just me again, I guess. I really didn’t think WikiLeak’s anti-American crusade was anything particularly out of the ordinary. I don’t even notice stuff like this anymore, you see.

Sure they violated the secrecy of diplomatic relations and put people in danger in the process and all that, but hey, it was all in the name of… In whose name was it again? Oh yeah, in that guy’s name up there.

“He is accused by the Swedish authorities of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape, all alleged to have been committed in August 2010.”

Banana Republik Deutschland

November 10, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

Corruption? Here? In German government agencies? Only about two billion euros worth a year or so, so I guess it hält sich in Grenzen (keeps within reasonable limits).

Or at least that’s what a study done by PriceWaterhousCoopers reports, but they’re probably corrupt too, right?
 
Example: In the past two years, 52 percent of all public authorities either committed an offense or were directly suspected of having done so.

“In den vergangenen zwei Jahren gab es demnach bei 52 Prozent der befragten Behörden mindestens eine nachgewiesene Straftat oder einen konkreten Verdacht.”

Only in Germany

October 6, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , 4 Comments

Possible Al Qaeda terrorist attacks? Who cares? Germans have more important things to get hysterical about: A train station project.

That’s right. But this isn’t just any train station project we’re talking about here, folks. This is the now imfamous “Stutttgart 21” train station project, whatever the hell that means.

I don’t understand this, as usual. And the more I read about it the more I see how I won’t be able to. As far as I can tell, it’s a new station that’s part of a long planned high-speed rail project that would connect Stuttgart to nearby Ulm as part of a major European transportation infrastructure project “that would eventually see a high-speed link running between Paris and Bratislava, Slovakia.”

So far so good. But then “das Volk” in Stuttgart went ape about something. I still don’t really know what it was, other than maybe it’s about having to cut down a few trees to build this thing, but now it’s devolved into out and out Revolutionary Romanticism (German style), complete with heroic demonstrations of resistance and real live police brutality (only after the demonstrators provoked them, of course).

Building a freakin’ train station becomes a Politikum (big political issue) here, in other words. But that won’t really surprise anyone who has spent any time in Germany. This kind of stuff happens here all the time. It’s easy to be part of the German Resistance Movement This Week when what you’re resisting is as, well, about as harmless as it gets. It’s so pitiful it’s not even funny. It’s hilarious.

Erfurt, Winnenden, Lörrach…

September 22, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

It’s a German ritual, and it kind of goes like this: After every crazy shooting in Germany by German crazies the German Waffengesetz (gun control law) gets tightened up tighter, even though it was tighter than tight to begin with.

It will get tightened up this time too, I suppose. And then, when the next crazy goes berzerk, you guessed it. That there is no connection here between the Waffengesetz and psycho-criminal acts carried out by psycho-criminal people is never addressed, of course.

It’s never addressed because that would be in bad taste and disturb the ritual, aimed as it is at giving people the deceptive feeling of having some kind of control over a situation they have no control over. It’s magic, sort of. Only it doesn’t work. People who go berserk will always find the weapon they need, Waffengesetz or not.

Obwohl das deutsche Waffengesetz nach den Amokläufen von Erfurt und von Winnenden schon verschärft wurde, obwohl auch das verschärfte Waffengesetz die Tat von Lörrach nicht verhindern konnte; die Debatte um ein restriktiveres Waffenrecht wird ein weiteres Mal geführt.

We’re not clearing any Roma settlements!

September 17, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

You must have misunderstood me or something, Nico.

Germany would never clear Roma and Sinti settlements. But that’s only because they don’t exist here. We send our Roma back individually. And very quietly. Got about 12,000 to go. So pipe it down about that from now on, will ya?

Nach Angaben des Bundesinnenministeriums wurden in diesem Jahr bis Ende Juli 102 Roma in den Kosovo ausgewiesen.