Talk about your sleeper cell phone.
The Obama administration has denied that the NSA is monitoring the communications on chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone.
This was confirmed by NSA officials after Merkel had called to discuss the matter with Obama on her cell phone.
Merkel und Obama hätten in dem Telefonat übereingestimmt, die Kooperation der Geheimdienste beider Länder zu intensivieren.
Fed up with having their personal privacy abused by Facebook, Google and the NSA all the time, many Germans have decided to give up their personal privacy altogether and now actively and gladly publish online practically ever damned freaking boring imaginable thing they do like ALL DAY/EVERY DAY/ALL LIFE LONG.
Actually, I thought they were all doing that already.
And in a related story, the Deutsche Telekom is planning to introduce “a vast computer network linking smaller computer networks worldwide,” or at least German-wide. They are then going to call this innovative and highly original new invention of theirs the Internetz. Or they sure ought to.
Or how about the Inner-Netz?
“My philosophy is that information is more useful when it’s out in the open.”
In a move that will clearly bring Amazon to its negotiating knees, German union Ver.di is threatening to strike the evil American online retailer’s logistic operations in Germany during the Christmas season itself should said evil retailer not increase wages for its German employees real pronto-like.
Shocked spokesmen at Amazon were clearly speechless here, prefering to announce that their company will now be opening three big new logistic centers just down the road in Poland in the very near future instead.
„Ich würde mich an Amazons Stelle nicht darauf verlassen, vor Weihnachten alle Kundenversprechen einhalten zu können.“
Wat denn nu (well which is it then)? Which of these two headlines is correct?
“Germany offers help to Syria chemical mission”
or
“Germany supplied Syria with chemicals up until 2011?”
Both are, you say? OK, I get it. I mean, I kinda sorta do.
Germany is ready to give finance and technical support to the international operation to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Saturday.
No, not that shocking IPCC global warming report (yawn). Alarming is just how much of a fiasco Germany’s Energiewende (energy turnaround) is turning out to be.
Michael Limburg, vice-president of the European Institute for Climate and Energy, told CNN that the government’s energy targets are “completely unfeasible.”
“Of course, it’s possible to erect tens of thousands of windmills but only at an extreme cost and waste of natural space,” he said. “And still it would not be able to deliver electricity when it is needed.”
Limburg told CNN the rapid transition to renewables is economically “insane,” arguing that wind farms will cost at least 13 times more than traditional coal plants.
He added: “Offshore wind is somewhat better in performance, cost and usability but still you have to spend six times as much as what you have to spend for a conventional power plant.”
Germans are already facing some of the highest energy bills in Europe.
According to the Institute for Energy Research, this year German electricity rates will increase by over 10% due to a surcharge for using more renewable energy and a further 30 to 50% price increase is expected in the next ten years.
Blackouts are another problem facing Germany’s energy industry…
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a report that a hiatus in warming this century, when temperatures have risen more slowly despite growing emissions, was a natural variation that would not last.
Beautiful German weapons sale of the week – or between 2002 and 2006, I mean.*
Because somebody has to admire them.
*It was only just a few harmless tons of chemicals (111 tons worth) that could have been used to make sarin nerve gas but it was absolutely perfectly legal so don’t anybody out there get all hot and bothered about this, OK? Thanks. I know you wouldn’t.
I guess this was the last Pirate Party fraternity boy prank before the election. Or forever, for that matter. They’re history here now, just in case you didn’t know.
And just in general, the varying reactions to the drone’s presence (Merkel’s smirk, the death stare from the other lady, and the range of reactions in between from the men on the podium) hint at the general way humans will react to the increased presence of robots and drones in everyday life.
When will the horror ever end?
No, I’m not talking about the radical German Islamists killing Christians in Syria. Nor am I referring to that German spy software being used the world over, either.
I’m talking about the horror of the very thought of German intelligence services having worked together with the CIA for years in a secret anti-terror unit named “Project 6” in Neuss. And get this: In 2010 their focus actually briefly turned to a German journalist! We’re talking horror here, people.
Deutsche Nachrichtendienste und die CIA haben nach SPIEGEL-Informationen jahrelang eine geheime Anti-Terror-Einheit mit dem Namen “Projekt 6” in Neuss betrieben. Herzstück war die gemeinsame Datenbank PX. Im Jahr 2010 geriet ein deutscher Journalist in den Fokus.
PS: I never realized…
One in seven Germans shuns the Internet completely.
Those are actual Germans up there shunning the actual Internet with an actual laptop, I think.
Totally unrelated PS: Profiteering: Crisis Has Saved Germany 40 Billion Euros
But we’ll, uh, trust them this one time here, maybe.
Al Qaeda is plotting attacks on Europe’s high-speed rail network, German newspaper Bild reported on Monday, citing a leaked National Security Agency (NSA) report.
The NSA report is based on an intercepted conference call between top Al-Qaeda operatives, in which the terrorist attacks were reportedly a “central topic”.
Berlin has responded to the threat with discreet measures such as deploying plain-clothed police officers at key stations and on main routes, Bild reported.
Der Hinweis stamme vom US-Geheimdienst NSA.
