Berlin Face Recognition Technology Severely Flawed

Immediately after launching their six-month test of automatic facial recognition technology at Berlin’s Südkreuz railway station, a number of the German authorities responsible have already expressed their bitter disappointment with the initial results.

Face

It seems that the face recognition software being used – programmed here in Berlin – is only capable of recognizing frowning faces and security officials involved with the project fear that the new system will not be able to recognize any cheerful, smiling terrorists who attempt to murder and maim us in the future.

“This is German software, after all,” grumbled one frowning security official, refusing to give his name for security reasons. “Now wipe that stupid grin off your face and leave me the hell alone.”

Heute ist es soweit: Die umstrittene Testphase zur Gesichtserkennung am Bahnhof Südkreuz beginnt. 300 Freiwillige haben sich gemeldet.

Maybe This Constance Guy Was Mentally Unstable, Too

You know, like that guy with the knife in Hamburg? The Hamburg guy who was supposed to have already been deported but couldn’t be because he didn’t have his proper paperwork yet? Germany is an orderly place, you know. You can enter the country without a passport but you can’t leave it without one.

Disco

What other explanation could there be here other than mental illness? This shooting couldn’t have a religious background because, well, it can’t have a religious background. Nor could it have anything to do with Germany’s refugee policy because, well, it can’t have anything to do with Germany’s refugee policy. And it couldn’t have anything to do with Angela Merkel because…

So it’s business as usual. Move on, volks. There’s nothing here for you to look at. Move along please.

“We must take into account that the jihadist ideology is used as reason or justification for acts that are perhaps committed for quite different motives.”

Only 41?

Germans waste 41 hours a year searching for parking.

Porsche

But then you have to add the 37 hours a year fighting with the other German over the parking space and the 23 hours a year you’ll spend trying to fit into the damned thing (parking spaces are narrow here, you see).

Frankfurt ranked as the worst city in Germany to find parking. On average, drivers in Frankfurt spend 65 hours a year searching for a space, costing them €1,410 each in wasted time, fuel and emissions and the city as a whole €702 million. Essen came second in the ranking (64 hours – €490m), followed by Berlin in third (62 hours – €1.8bn).

PS: At least owners of the Porsche Cayenne won’t be having that problem now anymore.

German Of The Day: Berührungsangst

That means the fear of contact or of being touched.

Books

Anti-fascists close an Israeli’s “Nazi recruitment center” in Berlin? Wow. They used to just call them bookstores. But I think I understand, sort of. Books and their authors are scary and dangerous. You know, scary like old ideas are scary, addressed from a distant, detached and academic point of view? That type of think might cause a fuss so make sure to cause the fuss beforehand. Unless you’re talking about books like the Communist Manifesto and stuff like that, of course. No Berührungsangst there.

A Berlin bookstore owner has said that the protests and boycott orchestrated by local anti-fascists against a planned event about fascist Italian philosopher and occultist Julius Evola – whose work inspired both Benito Mussolini and the far-right movement in the US – has helped force him out of business.

“So drum together all your punk friends and their dogs and pay a visit to these eso-hipsters on Thursday (the day of the event).”  My. how anti-fascist of you.

Russia Feels Germany’s Puzzlement

Speaking at an event in Berlin’s Hotel Adlon, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov could not agree more with German concern for the growing anti-Russian sentiment in Europe and around the world, explaining to understanding listeners that it is all just another anti-Russian conspiracy orchestrated by Washington, the UN, the EU, NATO,  the International Association of Youth Hypnotists, the Society for the Prevention of Plate Tectonics, the Animal Voting Rights Defense League and many, many, many others.

Russia

“Russia bashing these days is just as much a mystery to me as it is to you Germans,” Lavrov said. “Our annexation of the Crimea has long been forgotten, as have our countless bloody covert operations in Ukraine and the open bullying of our Baltic neighbors that is still going on. Our ongoing atrocities in Syria are second page news. And who cares anymore about our relentless and highly sophisticated hacker attacks all over the world, the ones we never committed, I mean? Nor is Germany’s dependence upon Russian gas of any concern to anyone, much less you here in Germany. It’s not like it would ever be used to exert political influence or anything. Then there is this recurring myth about our treatment of the political opposition in Russia. Ridiculous. There is no political opposition in Russia. I could go on and on forever but what’s the point? Like I said, this Russia phobia wackiness sure the hell beats me.”

Lawrow beklagt Russophobie in EU und Nato.

Leftest Crazy Party Shocked That Leftest Crazies Got So Leftest Crazy In Hamburg

And after their standing in the polls dropped dramatically following that, of course.

Hamburg

And they are really sorry it happened, sort of. And although the Left party still openly supports leftest crazy cultural centers in Berlin and eventually wants to turn Germany into Venezuela, they now wish to stress that this must be done without violence. Or maybe with not quite so much violence.

„Wer Polizisten verletzt und Autos anzündet, spielt denen in die Hände, die an der ungerechten Weltordnung nichts ändern wollen.“

German Of The Day: Partypolizei

That means party police. And who else could that refer to but the police in Berlin?

Party

Headline: “Party police” sent back to Berlin from their G20 deployment in Hamburg.

– Hundreds of Berlin police were deployed to help safeguard the coming G20 summit in Hamburg.

– But now three hundred have been prematurely dismissed from the deployment due to improper behavior.

– The accusations include urinating and having sex in public. In addition, one police woman was said to have been dancing on a table in a bath robe while brandishing a gun in her hand.

I don’t get it. So why did they get sent back home again? Those Hamburg cops must be real bores.

“Zwischen Beamtenarsch und Arschretter liegt oft nur ein vereitelter Überfall.”

Don’t Mind The Mind Police

You don’t have to. They’re minding you. Before you even noticed that you minded, too. But once you do start minding, remember to remind yourself that they are only minding you for your own good. So never mind.

Sexism

Progress at last, I must say. Berlin’s Left party has taken another step forward into the past by banning what they have deemed to be sexist advertising with of half-naked women on city billboards. I couldn’t agree more. I want them all naked. Completely naked. Now.

That image above would also fall under that sexism category, by the way. Like I said, never mind.

“You don’t have to hide your pugs.”

A Liberal Mosque?

The first “liberal mosque” is set to open today in a church in Berlin.

Mosque

Liberal, huh? I guess they’re going to hold their services in the left-wing of that church. It’s the last mosque on the left side of that street, by the way.

Liberal? Why the pews in that mosque lean so far to the left that everybody piles up on the prayer mat.

Why that mosque is so liberal that the cleric plans to let his husband be the first one to call the faithful to prayer.

The brainchild behind the mosque is feminist, peace activist and lawyer Seyran Ates, who moved to Germany from Turkey at the age of six. It will allow men and women to pray and preach together rather than separately. “Fundamentally, the mosque’s door is open for everyone, with one exception: No one will come in with a niqab or burqa.”

More Tough Sentencing In Germany

The state court in Berlin convicted a group of young refugees from Syria and Libya on Tuesday who attempted to set fire to a sleeping homeless man at a subway station on Christmas last year. The oldest of the group, a 21-year-old Syrian man, was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.

Crime

I guess the judges were being lenient like in that recent case in Cottbus. In Muslim countries it’s apparently OK to light people on fire so that needed to be taken into consideration, I assume.

But seriously, if were up to me and I were a judge here in Berlin I’d lock them up in the David Hasselhoff Museum and throw away the key.