A commission convened by Germany’s parliament believes the Internet should be given a greater political priority in the country.
The commission has recommended that Germany needs a permanent Internet commissioner.
CONTROL good. KAOS (the Internet) bad.
Fake Germans everywhere are distraught about a legal battle Facebook ITSELF won yesterday in Germany affirming that users in that country must register on the website with their real names.
This is a terrible blow to German privacy in general and the German Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in particular because, well, this leaves the door wide open for companies like Facebook “to determine their own policies about anonymity within the governing law” when offering their services and, uh, that is just plain unacceptable or something because, well, then people like the Data Protection Commissioner could soon be out of work.
Die Entscheidungen sind mehr als verblüffend.
A mass influx of skilled foreign laborers with “blue cards” to Germany is causing unexpected bureaucratic headaches and unsettling the already unsettled German xenophobic population at large.
So far, a grand total of 139 (that’s 1-3-9) foreign professionals have received the coveted card, camparable to the US-Amerikan “green card,” since its introduction in August.
“Wow. We had no idea just how bad people wanted to come here,” said one suprised immigration official. “This was way too easy. But how are we going to find jobs for all these folks now?”
Skilled employees from outside the European Union have apparantly been lining up everywhere and eating their achy breaky yearning little hearts out in earnest for this envied piece of blue plastic for quite some time now, partly due, it seems, to Germany’s celebrated image of being an overly bureaucratic and unwelcoming place for foreigners of all non-German kinds.
“German immigration law is still complicated and not very transparent for foreign skilled employees.”
Massive political resistance or pure economic theory? Or both?
“From an economic perspective, this should of course be avoided. Pure economic theory would say that the state should stay out of it and leave the market alone.”
“The massive political resistance was ultimately too great to overcome.”
Remember when the image of a light bulb used to represent having a good idea? Well an EU ban ushering in the replacement of traditional light bulbs with the more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulb (CFL) type has got everybody in Germany coming up with a bright new idea of their own: Hoarding the old ones.
Sure it’s bureaucracy gone wild again, but it’s only for your own good again, folks. And this way, with you guys doing all that hoarding, everybody wins. The producers and sellers of those bad old evil old light bulbs included.
“Hardware stores and home-improvement chains in Germany are seeing massive increases in the sales of the traditional bulbs. Obi reports a 27 percent growth in sales over the same period a year ago. Hornbach has seen its frosted-glass light bulb sales increase by 40-112 percent. When it comes to 100-watt bulbs, Max Bahr has seen an 80 percent jump in sales, while the figure has been 150 percent for its competitor Praktiker.”
„Wiesner recounts a story of how one of his field representatives recently saw a man in a hardware store with a shopping cart full of light bulbs of all types worth more than €200 ($285). “That’s enough for the next 20 years.“
