Beautiful German arson attacks of the week.
Because somebody has to notice they’re happening.
Die Polizei schließt bei dem Brand einer Asylbewerber-Unterkunft mit fünf Verletzten im baden-württembergischen Rottenburg Brandstiftung nicht aus.
Category Archives: Home Cooking
The Problem With European Immigration Policy…
Is that there is no European immigration policy.
There is a mish-mash of national policies, a patchwork of systems and criteria which are contradictory, incoherent, fragmented. Italy is very far way from Finland, not only geographically, but when it comes to immigration and asylum. France and Germany have quite different historical approaches to integrating newcomers. Sweden and Denmark are neighbours with a close shared history, but their immigration policies are chalk and cheese.
The seven countries of central Europe and the Baltic are being asked to take fewer than 30,000. It should not be a problem for big international cities such as Warsaw, Prague and Budapest. But the east Europeans are retreating into parochialism, digging into their national bunkers while nursing resentment at what they perceive to be German bullying.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is the cheerleader of the “Europe is useless” chorus, but Robert Fico, the Slovakian premier, and President Milos Zeman in Prague are not far behind. Ewa Kopacz, the prime minister of Poland, sounds more moderate, but she looks likely to lose an election next month to the nationalist right. Her hands are tied.
I wouldn’t worry about any of this, however. Think Greece: Europe always manages to get together in the end, when stalling for time is no longer possible, to not solve a problem by doing almost just enough to put it off until it does not go away by itself.
“If this is Europe, you can keep it.”
The Little Red Book: Of Little-Read Jokes about the Enlightened Left
Why do liberals love eating donuts so much?
Also available at Amazon, Apple iTunes, Barnes & Noble, createspace, etc. Enjoy!
Coffee From Togo To Be Heavily Taxed
At last count, Germans who purchase coffee from Togo toss some 3 billion of the disposable cups used to temporarily carry it in each and every year.
Predictably outraged by this, German green shirts have predictably outraged German coffee vendors by suggesting that a 20-cent tax be placed on this luxury drink to encourage coffee Togo connoisseurs to bring along their reusable and occasionally re-washable coffee Togo coffee cups with them, preferably hanging on the environmentally friendly coffee Togo belt loop hangers attached to their biodegradable pants.
Should this prove to be too impractical for some customers, the ecological crusaders suggest, vendors should offer them a discount option (taxpayer subsidized) of drinking the invigorating beverage directly from their trembling cupped hands.
“Nehmen Sie sich ein wenig Zeit und trinken Ihren Kaffee vor Ort – aus einer Tasse.”
Not Bright To Call Germany Dark
It is weder (neither) dark noch (nor) bright.
Personally, I like to think of it as being more of a Wehrmacht gray. No, wait. Leave that Wehrmacht part out. Gray like all cats are in the dark, I mean. When it’s not light out there in Dark Germany.
And being that it’s always darkest before the dawn and there is no darkness but ignorance and out of darkness comes creation, well, let’s all lighten up and Schluss (enough) with these all of these dark thoughts already.
Which Germany will prevail? The Germany of racist chants from the roadside? The Germany of rioters and drunken rock-throwers? “Dark Germany,” as President Joachim Gauck calls it? Or will it be the new, bright Germany, represented by the young policeman with his roots in Afghanistan?
The Mother Of All Refugee Shelters?
Tempelhof airport, the iconic structure that once oversaw the Berlin air lift in the 1950s, may be re-invented as a refugee shelter. The overstretched city administration did not deny it was considering the option.
Berlin may have finally found a use for Tempelhof airport, the vast, iconic building that ceased operation in 2008, but has only been put to temporary use since. The city administration is considering turning the iconic structure – scene of the Berlin air lift during the Cold War and once described by architect Sir Norman Foster as the “mother of all airports” – into one of the biggest refugee shelters in Europe.
Weird Science
More German environmental backwardness in action. Or would it be better to call it genetic illiteracy?
So much for Europe’s efforts to put the junk science surrounding genetically modified (GMO) food to rest. Berlin this week signaled it will prohibit cultivation of GMO crops in Germany, even if the crops have been approved by EU scientific bodies and despite an attempt by Brussels to legalize them.
Sure enough, neither environmentalists nor German politicians have come up with a justification for Berlin’s looming ban other than, well, because. Supporters cheer the move as an expression of “food democracy” in a country where opposition to GMOs is widespread and the government faced intense pressure to ban them…
Back in reality, EU scientific and food-safety authorities have repeatedly cleared various GMO crops for human and animal consumption. The process often takes months to complete, and in 95% of cases EU regulators ask producers for more evidence before greenlighting GMOs, so it’s hardly a rubber stamp.
German Of The Day: König Kunde
That sounds a bit like King Kong but actually means king customer or the customer is king, if you prefer. And it’s nice to be the king, as you well know.
For decades, France was the single biggest importer of German goods. But that’s changed now. The United States has taken the pole position among clients for “Made in Germany” goods for the first time.
Seit dem Jahr 1961 kauft kein Land so viele deutsche Produkte wie Frankreich. Das hat sich nun geändert. Und auch damit zu tun, dass Amerika wieder mehr auf die Industrie setzt.
PS: But thank goodness Germany still has its trade with ten foot tall China, too.
Angry, Drunk Germans Everywhere
Angry, drunk and unemployed German wasps are invading Essex?
Stuff happens. Angry, drunk and unemployed German wasps have become a real plague here in Germany these days, too. Only they call them neo-Nazis here.
Neo-Nazism remains a fringe political movement in Germany, and these attacks should not be taken as a sign that it is becoming part of the mainstream. But the events in Heidenau are a disturbing reminder that neo-Nazi groups’ message of xenophobia and hate seems to be finding an increasingly receptive audience among ordinary Germans.
Top Speed Ever: 26 Percent
Wind energy is inexhaustible, right? Well, not really. The talk about it is, though.
Researchers now tell us that when it comes to wind parks, due to a saturation effect, the upper limit for natural wind energy produced is one watt per square meter – not the seven watts per square meter as we had been told about before now. This means that a maximum of 26 percent of natural wind energy can be turned into energy here. “The more wind turbines I install, the less energy is produced by the individual turbines.”
“Wind turbines remove kinetic energy from the atmospheric flow, which reduces wind speeds and limits generation rates of large wind farms. These interactions can be approximated using a vertical kinetic energy (VKE) flux method, which predicts that the maximum power generation potential is 26% of the instantaneous downward transport of kinetic energy using the preturbine climatology.”
Maximal 26 Prozent der natürlichen Windenergie lassen sich für Strom nutzen.
Observing Hermann 