Chaos must be well organized, ja?

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.”

“Good European pieties and delirious anti-American phantasms”

It’s all here. Ya gottcha European Film Academy Awards, your European Director, your European Screenwriter, your European Actor, your European Composer, your European Production Designer and even your European Oscar, all right here in Europe. Financed primarily by Germany, of course (where all the shots get called these days), but still. Germany is part of Europe too, you know.

Now all you need is your appropriate inappropriate European Film with your suitably anti-American fantasy exposing that country for the “fundamentalist totalitarian state” it is (as put so diplomatically by European Film Academy Presidente por Life Wim Wenders–he’s a European too, by the way) and the recipe is complete.

So this year’s wiener (or is it weiner or even whiner?) is: Roman Polanski for “Ghost Writer.” It’s the heart-warming story of an Iraq War-related assasination of a CIA-controlled US-Amerikan imperialist Tony Blair robot or puppet dude, take your pick he’s both (I knew I always liked that guy for some reason).

Gee, I wonder who got the Best Foreign Language Film Language European Oscar Award this year? I’m going to go way out on a limb on this one and say German.

German-funded “European” film prize goes to German-funded anti-American film.

Thanks for the link, Joe.

German Technophobia Reaches North Pole

In yet another shocking new disclosure that may or may not have come from WikiLeaks although it’s hard to say for sure, it has been revealed that neither the German Santa Claus, St. Nikolaus, nor his many thousands of merry German post office helpers reply to children’s wish lists sent in the so-called “e-mail” format, insisting instead that “they learn how to do it properly.”

“Obviously we, as the postal service, want children to write letters,” said St. Nikolaus spokesman Freddie von Scrooge. “And besides, once you give in and start letting stuff like “e-mail” through, the next thing you know they’ll be Street Viewing the freakin’ North Pole.”

Santa Doesn’t Do Digital

Godchild should be Goodchild but actually Badchild

Well sheesh, it’s not the kid’s fault. Tradition is tradition. And wacky is wacky. And wacky tradition is… You get the picture.

Anyways, it’s a German tradition that the German president becomes an honorary godparent to the seventh child born to any family here (this doesn’t happen very often of course so it’s not like he’s ever overworked or anything).

This is all fine and gut, I guess, but unfortunately this latest kid’s family is, well, of the neo-Nazi persuasion.

On the seventh hour, of the seventh day, on the seventh month, the seventh doctor say…

„Unsere biologische Substanz durch Geburtenarmut und Masseneinwanderung von Ausländern gefährdet.“

Germans? More intolerant?

How ya figure? Wow. Talk about your news item. The survey says: Germans view Muslims and their religion (and Jews and theirs) more negatively than their European neighbors–who don’t seem to care much for them either, by the way.

But at least Germans are fair. When it comes to being unfair, I mean. The survey also came up with similar negative results for other religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. 

“The representative survey, which polled 1,000 people in each of the four countries mentioned, found that fewer than five percent of Germans thought Islam was a tolerant religion, compared to roughly 20 percent for the Danes, Dutch and French.” 

Street View way cool after all

Now that Google’s Street View is up and running in Germany, many of the very Germans so entsetzt (horrified) at the Datenkrake (data octopus) invading their privacy in the first place finally get to see how way cool this service really is and are now horrified that their homes have been pixelated without their permission–although this naked guy down here in his trunk in Mannheim was obviously thrilled with the Street View concept right from the start and wasn’t pixelated one tiny little bit, though he maybe shoulda outta been.

Many of these horrified Germans have now asked to have their pixelated homes unpixelated again ASAP but unfortunately this is now no longer possible, says Google, as one of the conditions for introducing Street View to Germany in the first place, as demanded by Germany’s horrified data security officials, was the immediate destruction of all photographic raw material once the data has been entered into the Street View database.

Lots of German real estate and tourism companies are upset about this unfortunate pixelization process too, by the way.

But hey,  you can’t displease all of the people all of the time, I guess.

“In keinem der 26 anderen Street-View-Länder gab es am ersten Tag einen solchen Zulauf wie in Deutschland., gab Google bekannt.”

Gottcha!

Just kidding about that being a bomb yesterday, folks. Just testing, I mean.

Wasn’t that hysterical? And here you thought American companies couldn’t export any cool stuff anymore.

And today’s Fehlalarm (false alarm)? A suspicious object that wasn’t a bomb this time either caused an ICE train to be evacuated at Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof (sorry, the linking is acting up a bit at the moment: http://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/terrorgefahr-in-deutschland-fehlalarm-im-ice-attrappe-in-namibia-1625680.html)

“BKA officials have examined it and the result is that it is a so-called ‘real test suitcase’ from a U.S. company. This company produces alarm and detection systems and these test suitcases are made to test security measures.”

Maybe history does repeat itself

At least when it comes to Germany’s interest in benefitting from currency troubles, I mean. Hey Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy… Stay hard-up or shut-up.

”The key principle of German economic policy was to persuade the French and Italians to lower the value of the D-mark so as to make Germany more competitive.”

“The Berlin government’s intransigence over the debt issue, while politically understandable from a German point of view, seemingly pays little heed to the realities of the euro economy, which are heavily tilted towards Germany.”

“In pre-EMU days, if the German economy were growing at an estimated 3.7% as it is this year, the German currency and interest rates would both come under upward pressure – damping exporters’ performance and the growth outlook. Now, however, with all EMU economies shackled together, and devaluation an impossibility for the peripheral countries, the hard-up states have nowhere to hide. Germany continues to profit from excellent export performance — and it can self-righteously point the finger of blame for the euro area’s woes at those debt-ridden peripheral states.”