And they aren’t even here yet. But they will be, soon. Halloween is coming up, after all.
And you thought Street View was scary. This is going to be a real privacy invasion, people. These robotic nightmares have mind reading laser probes that will continually feed on their victims’ brain-stem cells and gather more personal information about them than even they (at Google Imperial Command) will know what to do with. But they will, with time.
Die sind immer und überall.
Deswegen muss ich nächstens wieder hin.
“German authorities in Pakistan and Afghanistan warn of a 23-year-old Islamist (a Berliner) who has threatened to carry out terrorist attacks.”
In what was sure to have been one turkey of a show, Turkey beat Germany last night on a SAT .1 TV duel game show thingy. Sorry I missed it (not).
Damn. No sooner does German President Christian Wulff assert that Islam “belongs” in Germany than the Turks get all uppity and whoop everybody’s butt.
“Was die Show, außer den Kandidaten, mit den beiden Nationen zu tun hatte, blieb weitgehend schleierhaft.”
Possible Al Qaeda terrorist attacks? Who cares? Germans have more important things to get hysterical about: A train station project.
That’s right. But this isn’t just any train station project we’re talking about here, folks. This is the now imfamous “Stutttgart 21” train station project, whatever the hell that means.
I don’t understand this, as usual. And the more I read about it the more I see how I won’t be able to. As far as I can tell, it’s a new station that’s part of a long planned high-speed rail project that would connect Stuttgart to nearby Ulm as part of a major European transportation infrastructure project “that would eventually see a high-speed link running between Paris and Bratislava, Slovakia.”
So far so good. But then “das Volk” in Stuttgart went ape about something. I still don’t really know what it was, other than maybe it’s about having to cut down a few trees to build this thing, but now it’s devolved into out and out Revolutionary Romanticism (German style), complete with heroic demonstrations of resistance and real live police brutality (only after the demonstrators provoked them, of course).
Building a freakin’ train station becomes a Politikum (big political issue) here, in other words. But that won’t really surprise anyone who has spent any time in Germany. This kind of stuff happens here all the time. It’s easy to be part of the German Resistance Movement This Week when what you’re resisting is as, well, about as harmless as it gets. It’s so pitiful it’s not even funny. It’s hilarious.
The non-threat, I mean? Not if you were one of the five or more German militants in Pakistan’s border area with Afghanistan who just killed in a drone attack. They may have been linked to a group that is thought to be planning attacks on European cities so the threat got very quickly very concrete for them. Opps, I meant European cities that aren’t German, of course.
“What the US broadcaster Fox News and other media are putting out to the world as allegedly concrete warnings is negligent and damaging, and the substance is ridiculous.”
Let me repeat: No threat here. Not in Germany. It can’t happen here. It’s verboten or something. You would have to get an official Genehmigung (authorization) first and you know how long it takes to get one of those. So stop hyperventilating and relax already.
Forget reports about possible Al Qaeda terrorist attacks planned (being planned?) for Berlin’s Central Station, the TV Tower or Hotel Adlon. That’s all a bunch of American alarmist nonsense, honest (we’re talking about a FoxNews report here, after all). Sure there are “internal measures” being undertaken here in Germany right now anyway (whatever that means), just in case, but what’s that got to do with anything?
So move along and go quietly about your business (are your eyelids getting heavy yet?) and listen to what the Onkel (uncle) Interior Minister tells you.
„Für Alarmismus besteht, jedenfalls zur Zeit, kein Anlass.“
Whether it be a Siemens system in China, Indonesia, India, the United States, Australia, Britain, Malaysia, Pakistan and, oh yeah, now in Germany too “it quickly sets up communications with a remote server computer that can be used to steal proprietary information or take control of the SCADA system.”
Other than in those systems in Iran, I mean.
Just in time for Germany’s the big 20th anniversary reunification party or what?
“I can’t stand it! I know you planned it!”
No, not the one staring Harvey Keitel.
There’s apparantly a brisante (politically charged) quote in Bob Woodward’s new poltically charged book, “Obama’s Wars.” And no, it’s not about Obama.
An American general (I won’t give his real name–let’s just call him James Jones) hurt German soldier feelings really bad a while back by telling them “You’re not going to fight anyway, so we don’t need you” (in Afghanistan). The Germans refused to fight with him about it, however.
Can you imagine that? The next thing you know this Watergate Woodward guy will start digging up negative quotes about the President himself.
„Wir haben den Deutschen gesagt, ihr kämpft eh nicht, wir brauchen euch nicht.”
In a surprise announcement that absolutely no one interests or would believe one moment if it did, not-so-well-known futurologist Prof. Horst Opaschowski has announced the end of German egotism as we know it. Like in our time or something. Well it was a surprise announcement for me.
The age of the “Ichlinge” (The Me People) is coming to an end, says the Professor. After the finanical crisis, he says, Germans are now turning away in disgust from self-indulgence and mismanagement. They’ve seen the light, so-to-speak. “They want honorable businessmen and honest politicians. The yearning for secruity and solidarity within society is growing.”
His nose is growing too, I bet. Or this guy is terribly and deeply confused. Or maybe he just lives under a rock somewhere in the German pampa. He means well though, I guess, and that always “goes in the pants” over here, as the saying goes (goes awry).
At any rate, I pity the fool who believes a word Mr. Nostradamus here has to say. But not all that much really. After all, I’m only in this here for number one.
Deutsche suchen Sicherheit und soziale Geborgenheit.
See no evil, hear no evil. Alles Panikmache (it’s all scare tactics).
There’s nothing going on here, honest.
Observing Hermann 