Get it? Don’t matter. Germany finally has a new ICE train, the ICE 3.
No, not as in three years late (although it’s that, too), three as in three hundred freakin’ kilometers per hour. Damn. I wanna ride that puppy, too.
Die Autos auf der parallel verlaufenden Autobahn A3 scheinen zu stehen, wenn der ICE mit Tempo 305 an ihnen vorbeirast.
1) Chinese intelligence agencies have apparently carried out a spy attack on the federal government of Germany. Yawn.
2) Some 16 million email addresses and passwords of 600 government employees at every German ministry have been taken in a massive data theft operation. The attack was carried out by eastern European criminals, according to Der Spiegel. Snooze.
When asked for more detailed information, a German government spokesman replied “More detailed information. Of what? Like who cares? It’s not as if these attacks were carried out by the NSA or anything.”
Researchers declined to speculate about the possible origin of the malware, but noted that none of the victims were from China.
PS: As for this year’s Berlinale, hmmm. The Chinese just won the Golden Bear for best film this year, too. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Some long-established film festivals, such as Cannes and Venice, can legitimately claim to be timeless. Berlin, however, seems to be stuck in the past, and not only because the event somewhat coasts on its bygone reputation as a festival of discovery…
The Berlinale’s 64th edition was the most lukewarm in years. You don’t usually expect swoons and scandals here, but you do hope that every year’s competition will bring one major discovery, or at least an unassuming gem that everyone falls in love with. There was one universally adored film in competition – but it doesn’t quite count as a Berlin revelation, as it came straight from wowing Sundance…
Berlin always provides its share of A-list red-carpet promenades – this year, by the likes of George Clooney, Bill Murray and Uma Thurman – yet these never quite disguise the festival’s essential earnestness…
Otherwise, I suspect that Berlin 2014 will be best remembered for its major innovation – the addition of a pop-up line of gourmet food wagons. Festival-goers will turn up undeterred again next year – but many of them will be doing it less for the films than for this Berlinale’s real discovery, the pulled pork baps.
IT business here in Germany, I mean.
Funny how that is. Makes a body wonder sometimes if helping to keep folks all hot and bothered like this about our latest “devastating crisis of confidence” is maybe sort of, I dunno, intentional or something? You know, as in profitable intentional?
I know, I know. German media and industry have higher standards than that and would never try to take advantage of a situation like this but look, if everybody else out there is going to keep going hysterical and paranoid about this novel issue of ours then I can start speculating, too. Hmmm. Now Snowden isn’t a German name, is it? Eduard certainly is, though.
“Our best marketing employee is Edward Snowden.”
Just kind of sleazy.
Corruption across the European Union’s 28 countries costs about 120 billion euros ($162 billion) per year — a “breathtaking” sum equal to the EU’s entire annual budget, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said Monday.
But Germany gets top marks from the commission: “When it comes to fighting corruption, Germany is amongst the best countries of the EU.” But the country could benefit from introducing “strict penalties” on corrupt elected officials and “develop a policy” to limit the ability of government officials to go work for companies they previously were in a position to help.
Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.
Because somebody has to admire them.
Despite it’s often pacifist positions on global security issues, Germany is also in the seemingly contradictory position of being one of the world’s largest arms exporters.
PS: At least none of those creepy postcards are involved here.
All of a sudden. For all of that five-year-plan-renewable-energy-turnaround-ideology-project-like-stuff in Germany, I mean. She is gone, señor.
Or at least more and more German citizens are finally waking up and simply just aren’t prepared to keep on paying ever more for less and less of whatever it was that this so-called energy turnaround of theirs was supposed to be delivering.
That is why Superminister Gabriel (didn’t he used to sing with Supertramp?) is now urging (ordering) German parliamentary lawmakers to start cutting state subsidies for renewable energies – for German industry – because they are rich and capitalistic or something and are therefore evil (he’s an SPD Superminister) and haven’t really been milked properly for this one yet. And the po folks just aren’t willing to keep paying more and more, like I said [By the way, the S in SPD stands for “social” and everything with “social” in it means “free lunch.” Read Margaret Thatcher’s quote down there on the right if you want to learn more.].
Of course why the energy turnaround has to keep on turning around the way it does like this in the first place is the really interesting question here, I find, but certainly not one that anyone here in Germany appears to be willing to ask. At least not quite yet anyway.
Yup, renewable turnaround money has sure gotten tight around here these days. Not even a Swabian housewife can help out anymore.
“We need to break the dynamics of ever-rising electricity bills, while ensuring a stable supply of energy for all.”
Germany still has a bit to go.
Greek prosecutors last week arrested two more people suspected of having taken bribes from German armaments firms during the last decade.
For Super Bowl Amerika, I mean?
They should have at least tried using a real German.
“Algorithm” isn’t VW’s official ad for Super Bowl XLVIII, it’s simply meant as a teaser. Artistically speaking, it’s designed to give viewers a sense of the tone Volkswagen will strike on February 2. Creatively speaking, it’s pretty lazy.
PS: Thanks for the funny Passat/Charger clip, Murph. Perfect intro to this.
The EU’s reputation as a model of environmental responsibility may soon be history. The European Commission wants to forgo ambitious climate protection goals and pave the way for fracking — jeopardizing Germany’s touted energy revolution in the process.
The Commission’s move further isolates Germany. Merkel’s government, a “grand coalition” of her conservatives and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), seeks to increase the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix to 60 percent by 2036.
Observing Hermann 