“There is no legal basis for filming peaceful demonstrators in Berlin,” a German administrative court spokesman said today, referring to a practice carried out by cops here for several years now.
“Besides, it’s only worth filming them once they start throwing rocks and stuff anyway.”
The judges said the recordings were an inadmissible breach of basic assembly rights, as they could scare people (without rocks?) away from public gatherings.
Clueless and naïve? The German army in Afghanistan?
“The close to 92,000 log reports obtained by WikiLeaks do not include any new instances of excessive violence against civilians or illegal clandestine operations on the part of the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan, but they do show how poorly prepared Germany and its military were when they entered the Afghanistan war — and why their mission will likely remain unfulfilled in the end.”
The German army was clueless and naïve when it stumbled into the conflict.
“A small Iranian-owned bank in Germany has been used by the Iranian government to go around international economic sanctions and do business on behalf of blacklisted organizations.”
“The UN Security Council slapped a fourth set of sanctions against Iran in June for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment work, the most sensitive part of Tehran’s controversial atomic drive.”
But now she’s found.
Nina Hagen singing gospels? Why on earth (and elsewhere) not?
Nina Hagen findet ihren „Personal Jesus“
Unless it’s number one, Germans hate to be counted. They just don’t like it. It “injures their private sphere” or something, whatever that is.
That’s why a bunch of activist types are out to stop the census that’s finally supposed to take place here next year. They’ve even put together a huge list of signatures of citizens against the census but they can’t say how many it is because they refuse to count them.
And this brings us back to number one again. These guys are clearly striving to be counted number one when it comes to being the one country on earth that hasn’t taken a census the longest. The last one taken here was way back in 1987. Germany is now tied with other uncountable countries like Eritrea, Myanmar and the Congo. But they don’t count, so-to-speak. Or not after Germany’s number one, they won’t. And you can count on that.
1987, das ist schon lange her – zumindest im internationalen Vergleich.
Toleration?
Here’s how you form coalition governments if you’re the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia (they’ve done this before): First of all, don’t win the election. Then, form a minority government with the Greens which is “tolerated” by the Left Party.
And here’s how the toleration part works: The Left Party quietly qets a whole lot more of what it wants than what it deserves by discretely making agreements with the coaltion partners behind the scenes while boldly threatening to stop its toleration and thus them (the coalition partners) dead in their tracks. Then, in one or two or however many years it takes, the voters get grossed out about the policies they didn’t really support or vote for in the first place, hold the coaltion partners accountable for the mess, vote them out, and the Left Party comes strolling out of the mess and into the opposition smelling like a rose. You know, as in “We weren’t in the government!”
Run with it, Hannelore.
Ministerpräsidentin mit Makel
The next euro whammy? Now it’s time to assist Portugal. Bring out your Microcurrency, Germany. But don’t spend it all at one place.
“The alternative currency is not some gimmicky fundraiser. It may look a little like Monopoly money, but the chiemgauer is real. One chiemgauer equals one euro. It’s been around for eight years, almost as long as the euro, the common currency now used by 16 of the 27 EU members.”
“I can’t give it away on Fifth Avenue.”
But here in Berlin it’s, uh, anders (different).
Boo, or something.
Berlin Fashion Week: The Good, the Bad, and the Terrifying
If you want to. But you don’t want to, so you won’t. Despite a falling inflation rate and all the coaxing from the outside you want, Germans “can’t get over their stingy ways and fiscal paranoia to boost spending” (they don’t seem to mind if everybody else out there does the spending for them though).
“Germany seems to be preparing instead to further cut back on spending. Unlike most Americans, Germans pay their credit card bills in full at the end of every month. Only 39% own their own houses or apartments, compared with two-thirds of Britons and Americans. Only about 10% of Germans invest in the stock market, compared with half of all Americans.
Last year, Germany expanded public spending meant to stimulate growth, but at the same time it imposed a constitutional requirement to bring the deficit down to below 0.35% of GDP by 2016, a goal critics describe as unrealistic and unnecessary.
All of this contributes to the impression, shared by Germans themselves, that a strong strain of frugality shapes the national psyche.”
72 percent of Germans are online.
Right this moment, I mean. I assume.
Fast 19 Millionen Deutsche ab 14 Jahren haben derzeit keinen Zugang zum Internet.
Observing Hermann 