Cool Berliner signs and Zettel. For no particular reason at all.
Tag Archives: Berlin
Maybe The Turks Could Build One Of These New-Fangled Airport Thingies In Berlin, Too
The construction of the world’s largest airport began on June 7 in Istanbul with a massive groundbreaking ceremony. When fully completed in 2018, the 10 billion-euro airport will be able to carry 150 million passengers a year, making it one of the world’s busiest airports.
Meanwhile, back in Germany…
Berlin’s disastrous airport project (groundbreaking so long ago nobody can remember anymore, at one time planned to open in June 2012 Anno Domini) was hit with another scandal after its technical director was suspended pending an investigation into alleged corruption. A “leading employee” responsible for awarding contracts during the on-going construction of the hopelessly-delayed Berlin Brandenburg airport (BER), is suspected of having demanded €500,000 bribes from a prospective contractor.
Berlin’s airport is already too small.
Berlin Convicts Unionize For Minimum Security
I mean for minimum wage. I kid you not. Here’s another one of those “I don’t make this stuff up, people” stories.
Only in Berlin can prison inmates set up the the world’s first union for prisoners so they can campaign to get a minimum wage and a pension plan for convicts.
Hey guys, you forgot about the early retirement part. Hardy, har, har.
And what are they going to call your pension plan, anyways? Social High Security? Yuckity yuck.
Häftlinge der Justizvollzugsanstalt fordern einen Mindestlohn für Inhaftierte und eine Rentenversicherung
What Do You Mean BEFORE World War II?
“Given the horror of the Second World War where the guilt of course strongly lies with Germany and we take responsibility for the terror of National Socialism, we haven’t in Germany had the First World War so much in mind.”
One indication of Germans’ interest has been the success of the best-seller “The Sleepwalkers” by Australian Christopher Clark…
Experts and critics put the German success of the nearly 900-page title down to the book’s premise that Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire didn’t play any greater role than other countries in starting the war.
“People are delighted,” Historian Gerd Krumeich of Duesseldorf University said, sarcastically. “Among German intellectuals there was the conviction that everything led us to Hitler. Clark liberates us from all that by saying to us ‘you’re not more aggressive than the others’,” he said.
Only In Germany Can You Emasculate A Traffic Light
The city of Berlin may be poor but sexy, but it is not poor but sexy enough to not be able to scrape up enough needed tax euros to introduce a traffic light woman quota.
I don’t make this stuff up, people.
“Women need to be more present in the appearances of our capital’s streets,” Martina Matischok-Yesilcimen, Germany’s Social Democratic Party district leader who signed a recent motion (PDF) to introduce female walk signals, told Bloomberg News.
“We’re a diverse city, and that deserves to be seen.”
PS: And have a happy election day or something while you’re at it.
Let It Rot
It’s voting time in Berlin again. This time it’s about whether or not good old abandoned Tempelhof Field should be developed or not (for housing, a library, etc.). You know, to actually maybe use it for something other than flying kites?
But as usual we have learned that this would be a terrible thing and that the field needs to be “saved” from such an awful fate, or at least that’s what opponents on the left insist. Urban Romantics need more room to move, especially if they are German ones (“the richest kind”) and being that saying no is so popular and comes so naturally to Germans in general and Berliners in particular, I am quite sure these opponents will win yet again.
Der stillgelegte Berliner Flughafen liegt brach. Nicht weil der Ort belasteter wäre als andere, sondern weil es leichter ist, mit dem “Luxus der Leere” zu kokettieren, als die Geschichte anzunehmen.
Das Tempelhofer-Feld ist eine Oase mitten in Berlin.
A Sound Panzer?
What will they tank of next?
The Sound Tank (or “Sound Panzer,” as Nowak refers to it in the video) is a reconfigured mini-dump truck that Nowak was able to transform into a colossal mobile soundsystem. Nowak designed the bass-bumping vehicle’s giant speaker wall with a hydraulic system, enabling him to raise it upright and point the 13 loudspeakers and three 18-inch subwoofers at any target.
Someone fired a gun next to Nowak’s ear as a young child, and as a result the artist lost the ability to hear high frequencies with his right ear. “That experience brought home to me the extent to which sound can shape reality,” Nowak muses in the video.
PS: For those interested in old school NSA stuff, there are some good shots of what is left of the old Teufelsberg facility in the video, too.
American Internet Security Expert David Hasselhoff Speaks at Berlin’s re:publica
And honestly, folks. What would a digital natives summit to tackle surveillance be without him?
He’s been looking for digital freedom or something. And damned if he didn’t find it. Here of all places. Hey, just because you can’t read or carry a note doesn’t mean you can’t keynote.
Der Saal ist gut gefüllt, voll ist er nicht.
Berlin Starts Talking Tough To Russia After All
Sort of. Jeepers creepers already! This ought to stop old Vlad Putin dead in his tank tracks.
Germany should remove a pair of World War Two-era Soviet tanks standing on pedestals next to Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate in protest at Russia’s actions in Crimea and Ukraine, Germany’s best-selling newspaper Bild said on Tuesday.
Launching a petition to get rid of the two green T-34 tanks that have stood in front of the Soviet war memorial since it was built in 1945, Bild and Berlin tabloid B.Z. urged readers to send letters of protest to parliament against the war symbols.
Wir wollen keine Russen-Panzer am Brandenburger Tor!
Bring This Guy To Germany, Please
German Aufregung (fuss and commotion) is a funny thing.
On the one hand, the Germans feel that it is absolutely, unquestionably and positively of the very utmost importance that their Volksheld Edward Snowden be brought to Germany right here this minute so he can testify against that despicable Empire of Evil itself, the NSA (stands for Narks, Spys and Agent provocateurs, I think).
On the other hand, well, if Mr. Snowden were in fact to come to Germany, the Germans, unfortunately being Germans, being the reliable, law-abiding and legalistic Germans they are, would have no other recourse but to extradite their folk hero to US-Amerika to face the criminal charges that are currently waiting for him there.
This is a dilemma. Or maybe a predicament. Perhaps even a quandary. At any rate, it really is a funny thing, like I said. You see it just doesn’t cost you anything to make a big loud fuss and commotion about something when you know right from the start you won’t ever “have to deliver” on anything concerning it.
“Wenn Snowden nach Deutschland käme, müsste die Bundesregierung meines Erachtens einem rechtlich einwandfreien Auslieferungsersuchen der USA stattgeben.”
