Achtung, Achtung: Census.com!

First it was Google Street View, then Facebook, now another sinister new American data octopus is stretching out its tentacles to abuse German privacy rights anywhere and everywhere it can: Census.com!

Oops! False alarm. It looks like it’s a real German census and doesn’t even have a .com at all. But I’m nevertheless sure that the opposition to it will be massive, just like it was twenty-five years ago in West Germany when an uncountable number of Germans (think census–get it?) took to the streets to protest the government’s evil plan and even boycotted the survey.

Oops again already. Another false alarm. Nobody seems to give a hoot this time. Now everybody is lining up to get counted like sheep. What ever happened to civil disobedience? Even a little uncivil disobedience would be OK with me, people. Pitiful.

Statisticians predict that the survey may well reveal the German population is smaller than thought. The statistics office predicts that up to 1.3 million people still counted on regional population tallies may not actually exist.

And speaking of terror…

Since 2003, EU countries have grudgingly relayed names and other information to US authorities concerning airline passangers who travel between EU and non-EU countries.

This has been complained about and protested against loudly and often(ly) by empörte (indignant) exponents of transparency everywhere who clearly don’t trust the American claim that this is purely an anti-terror measure and only in their best interest.

Now it turns out that these bad American spy policies robbing Germans of their personal freedom led directly to the capture of the Düsseldorfer terror cell last month that had concrete plans for a bomb attack in Germany.

The three alleged terrorists (who also had their personal freedom robbed) were detained during police raids in Düsseldorf and Bochum after authorities decided that they might be getting close to carrying out the attack.

You don’t have to say thanks or anything, Germany. America was just doing its job (rides off into the sunset, fade to black).

„Von amerikanischer Seite sind wir unter anderem auf das auffällige und ungewöhnliche Reiseverhalten der Verdächtigen hingewiesen worden.“

Deep Space Nein

As the hours tick on, the ever more complex German deep space nein analysis of the Osama-Obama-Drama twists further and further into a seething black hole-ish vortex of convolution, confusion and boundless bitching and moaning.

Here are a few of the latest I particularly like:

“Above all, this conflict takes place in the visual realm, it is a war of images and their reciprocal overpowering through the inspection of that which takes place on the screen.” Huh? So they killed him with a digital camera or what?

“Without photos (of bin Laden’s corpse) conspiracy theories will spread in the US and in the Islamic World.” But not in Germany though, right?

“The Americans made a grave mistake by preventing the necessary tribunal (at an international court of justice) through the liquidation of bin Laden and the overhasty disposal of his body at sea.” So you could still hold the tribunal if they give you the body or what?

“Immanual Kant had realized this well; that this ban on images (they mean bin Laden’s corpse pictures) is the magic behind religious enthusiasm and it is this abstraction of the deduced representation which opens up a greater scope for imagination and passion.” Holy Shit. Even Kant is putting in his two cents worth now.

These are too heavy for me. Let’s try a few of these instead:

“‘Justice’ has become a mere joker card concept used for politically calculated maneuvers.”

“The other side of terrorism are interest and goal pursuing policies that hold to no international law.”

“A fitting translation of ‘enemy killed in action’ could also be ‘executed’.”

Enough already. Let’s finish up with these for dessert:

“Bin Laden was unarmed as he died.”

“Justice, American style.”

“Not a real breakthrough.”

“Bin Laden’s death comes 10 years too late.”

“America’s lost decade cannot be regained.”

“Was bin Laden’s killing legal?”

Stay tuned or something.

Die Übertragung des Militäreinsatzes auf fremden Territorium via Satelliten macht noch einmal klar, dass die Weltmacht USA nicht nur global, indifferent gegenüber Souveränitätsrechten, sondern auch orbital agiert, dass der von Flugmaschinen, Raketen und Nachrichtenautomaten bevölkerte Himmel mit der terrestrischen Einflusssphäre verschmolzen ist.

Warm-up Time!

Berlin’s linke Szene (left-wing scene) is ganz aus dem Häuschen (giddy with excitement) and already on the street warming up for Sunday’s big May Day Riot.

The popular annual event, also known as the International Workers’ Day Riot, was originally celebrated as a senseless orgy of radical left-wing violence but has long since mutated into a senseless orgy of radical any-kind-of-violence-you-want dominated by agitated “Autonome“, participants without any political motivation whatsoever.

The Berlin police department is not permitted to intervene in any meaningful way that could possibly hurt the protestors’ feelings, however, this out of respect for the event’s radical leftist origins and the many aging left-wing romantics who will still somehow manage to take part if not vacationing on Mallorca.

All are welcome to attend. Barricades and stones will be furnished for free. You will have to resist arrest on your own, however. And PLEASE leave your cars at home.

Die Aktion sei “nix außer Selbstinszenierung” gewesen.

Horror Scenario?

10 euros a month tops? For a “turbo” phase-out of atomic energy in Germany?

According to the Spiegel, that’s what “almost all” German citizens would be willing to pay to get out of the tsunami-plagued industry pronto (German tsunamis are indeed rare, but still). And they mean 10 euros a month per German household, by the way, not for the whole country.

That certainly is reassuring (sort of) after hearing all these Horrorszenarien (horror scenarios) being circulated out there by crackpot organizations like the Federal Association of German Industry (BDI) these days. They warn, for instance, that a quick German nuclear power halt could raise electricity prices here by as much as 30 percent (that would be more than 10 euros a month I think, but still).

I am sure that “almost all” German citizens would be willing to shell that out too.

But, then again, I am also sure that invading reptilian humanoids disguised as human beings are secretly controlling the fate of the human race.

Es darf nichts kosten (it just can’t cost anything).

PS: Thanks for the link, Joe.

No good NIMBY-pamby protesters!

Are we having an energy revolution yet?

Although there is a long way to go before construction can begin on the high-voltage transmission lines, the “regional resistance” that the experts colored on their map has already begun to materialize.

There are obstacles everywhere. Either the landscape is so densely populated that it is poorly suited for big infrastructure projects, or it is so devoid of people that it should be preserved precisely for this reason.

The tactics of the power-line opponents are simple and perfectly understandable. The more arguments that can be presented against the project, the more likely it is that the future route will run further away from one’s own community and closer to the neighboring village instead.

Fortunately for the opponents, German law offers plenty of ways to keep the power masts at a good distance.

Saving birds and bats from the power lines, protecting gliders, a festival of bureaucracy. It’s all here, people.

Green Eggs and Ham

Particularly nervous about this, that and the other thing these past few weeks, Germans are now being frightened by their very own Easter eggs.

Greenpeace eggtivists have determined that up to 20 percent of eggs sold in Germany have been contaminated with the dreaded and deadly genetically modified “herbicide tolerant soja bean” or so-called “Gen-Soja” chicken feed. You know, the chickens that lay the eggs eat this scourge of chickenkind first?

Green Germans have reacted accordingly and have now begun to have their chickens produce organically correct and green (literally green) eggs instead.

Sam!
If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.

U-Turn, I-Turn, We All Turn

Turn, as in spinnen (to spin or, in this case, to be mental). This is another one of those only-in-Germany ones.

How long has it been since the latest greatest German Wende (turnaround)? Read some of these:

The U-turn on nuclear policy Chancellor Angela Merkel announced last month following the Fukushima accident will involve a massive expansion of renewable energies — as rapidly as possible. She is giving the public what it wants. But the shift will nevertheless provoke a major backlash. Germans may love their green energy, but they also have a growing proclivity towards not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) lawsuits and referenda.

Many are now asking themselves if the transition to renewable energies will ruin the nation’s countryside.

Germany’s Federal Agency for Nature Conservation is already warning that in the rush to expand renewable energies, nature and wildlife conservation is being put on the back burner.

Germany’s opposition to wind power is well organized. The website windkraftgegner.de (wind power opponents), lists more than 70 protest campaigns.

Opposition is also mounting against the massive power masts that will be needed to transport clean energy across Germany and Europe.

And on and on and on. I don’t make this stuff up, people. Now they’re takin’ it to the streets to protest against renewable energy.

And the Green party’s grand energy strategy after their magnificent triumph down there in Baden-Wuerttemberg last month? Save power.

“We as Greens need to demonstrate our credibility,” national party co-chair Claudia Roth has said. At the same time, though, the Greens are very often active in the local NIMBY protests against the very kind of projects the party backs.

iPhone 4 To Fill Street View Paranoia Market Niche

Now that Google has lost interest in continuing its Street View service in Germany, a lucrative privacy paranoia market niche has opened in that country.

Although unable to meet the demand completely, Apple’s iPhone 4 has volunteered to jump into the breach until something more sinister comes along. Some users have reported that the phone, not unlike Google’s Street View, sometimes takes secret photos of them. You know, without their expressed written permission and all that?

Macht das iPhone 4 heimlich Fotos?

German Streets Not Worth The View

With German streets offering such a blurry mess wherever you look these days, and apparently tired of driving an uphill battle ever since it began taking Street View shots in Germany, Google has now decided to opt out of the German Street View service itself.

Despite winning a Berlin State Supreme Court ruling last month confirming that Street View was legal here, the company’s priorities “have simply shifted” and it will now pursue activities in Germany that do not constitute such a royal freakin’ pain in the ass.

It remains to be seen just how Google’s Street View situation will affect similar street-based mapping services in the region, including the impending “Streetside” program from Microsoft’s Bing.