Germans Already Lining Up To Be Forgotten By Google

Europe’s top court ruling that Google and other Internet companies can now be made to remove “irrelevant or excessive personal information” from search engine results has triggered a virtual stampede of excited Germans demanding that their irrelevant and excessive personal information be removed from the Internet immediately.

Google

“Irrelevant and excessive personal information is the only kind of information I produce,” said one soon-to-be-forgotten Google skeptic. “Or consist of, if you will. So you can bet that I just can’t wait to be wiped out of virtual existence for good!”

“The ruling will help certain people hide their past, making it difficult to access certain information, but not when it concerns public figures, or people in whom there is a genuine public interest. This will result in added costs for Internet search providers who will have to add to their take-down policies the means for removing links to an individual’s data, and develop criteria for distinguishing public figures from private individuals.”

Bring This Guy To Germany, Please

German Aufregung (fuss and commotion) is a funny thing.

Edward Snowden

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.”

Criminal Failed To Register Stolen Revolver Before Killing Girlfriend And Self

Gun law-abiding Germans everywhere where shocked to discover today that a criminal in Münster had failed to register the revolver he had stolen before turning the weapon on his girlfriend and himself.

Gun control

“I’ve seen it all now,” one enraged passerby at the scene of the crime commented. “What good are stringent gun control laws if the criminals out there these days don’t have the decency to abide by them?”

“Don’t these idiots know that if you don’t register your stolen weapon it could be immediately confiscated and you’d probably be hit with a big honking fine?” Another irrate citizen chimed in. “And how the hell are the police going to be able to track down and arrest crooks like this if they don’t even know where to find them? And they haven’t killed themselves first, I mean. Ever think about that? The cops aren’t magicians you know.”

Der Revolver, mit dem der Mann schoss, stammte aus einem Einbruch in einem anderen Bundesland.

When The German Anti-Terror Units Aren’t Sick The German Taliban Are

Only Germans can come up with Pretraumatic Stress Disorder. But now we can take this puppy up a notch higher.

Taliban

“German Taliban” Josef D. (the guy in the middle with the skin problem) joins a terrorist group, gets himself a Kalaschnikow, goes to Afghanistan intending to do that jihad thing but then gets Durchfall (diarrhea) and therefore cannot take part in all the cool attacks planned on US installations there so he has to return home to Germany where he promptly gets busted (I’m not sure for what, though).

Now his lawyer informs us that his Schuldfähigkeit (legal culpability) needs to be looked into very intensely and  thoroughly-like because not only does this guy have terrible awful diarrhea problems, he also suddenly seems to be suffering from some kind of mysterious mental disorder. Uh, wait a minute. Don’t all terrorists suffer from some kind of mysterious mental disorder?

Anyways, this all has a certain logic to it if you ask me. Germany is the number one country when it comes to doctor visits, after all. Politicians get sick and throw in the towel here all the time. German intellectuals regularly get ill or “burn out” while analyzing the world around them. A huge portion of German youth suffers from “social phobia” and half a million Germans are hopelessly “addicted” to the Internet. Hell, even the German Pope gets sick and has to go into early retirement, for crying out loud.

It’s just not easy being a German, I guess. Without getting sick, I mean. But like doesn’t somebody out there – who is German – have to do it?

Wegen einer chronischen Durchfallerkrankung habe er aber nicht an Anschlägen und Angriffen der Gruppe auf afghanische und US-Einrichtungen teilnehmen können, so die Bundesanwaltschaft.

Poor But Sexy But Stoned

Actually, depending upon who you choose to believe, Berlin isn’t nearly as poor but sexy as it used to be.

Pot

But that still leaves the stoned part (he said leaves). Talk about that counterculture paradise we were addressing yesterday. Councillors in Berlin Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg have now voted to launch the city’s/country’s first cannabis cafe in their district. See what happens.

I had no idea you could drink the stuff in your coffee, though.

German law prohibits the public sale of narcotics, but exceptions are possible “for scientific or other purposes in the public interest”.

Taxing Nuclear Fuel Rods That Aren’t Being Used?

You can never be too rich or too thin, I guess. And if you’re Germany, you can never tax too much, either.

Taxation

Germany’s biggest utilities, still reeling from the country’s early exit from nuclear power, scored a major victory Tuesday when a Hamburg court said the national tax on nuclear fuel rods may violate European law.

The Hamburg finance court said it “cannot assess beyond any doubt” whether the tax on nuclear fuel used for electricity generation complies with European law. It will now ask the European Court of Justice to decide whether the levy conforms with rules that prohibit member states from creating new taxes on electricity for “general budget financing purposes.”

The tax was introduced at the beginning of 2011 and came as part of an extension of nuclear reactors’ operating lives that the government had agreed on. However, the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima power plant in March of that year triggered a U-turn in German energy policy, with Chancellor Angela Merkel ordering the immediate shutdown of the oldest plants and the early phaseout of nuclear energy by 2022. Out of 17 reactors that were in operation in March 2011, only nine are still producing power. But the fuel-rod tax remains in place, to the utilities’ annoyance.

Das Hamburger Finanzgericht will vom Europäischen Gerichtshof (EuGH) in Luxemburg zentrale Fragen zur umstrittenen Brennelementesteuer klären lassen.

WikiLeaks Leak Leaked To US Intelligence Before Leak Could Be Properly Leaked

Or so claims that anything but courageous fighter for selective justice and phoney moralist-snitch-nerd-global-poster-boy Julian Assange HIMSELF.

Assange

And that is why he is now blowing the whistle yet again, only this time from his self-imposed exile in an Ecuadorian Embassy cell, and has made a criminal complaint with the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe.

He believes that an evil ex-US Marine Corps spy guy dude pre-leaked his leak while Assange was visiting a “Chaos Computer Club” convention in Berlin back in 2009. And this is just plain not fair, I guess. And leak-worthy in and of itself.

Nach Darstellung des NDR und Süddeutscher Zeitung soll Assange in seiner Strafanzeige den Bundesanwälten angeboten haben, sich per Video zu dem Vorgang vernehmen zu lassen.

Visit Germany!

If you dare. Then enjoy your short stay here before your extradition back home (home?) to the USA.

Snowden

The Federal Republic of Germany can offer asylum to someone who is being politically persecuted, not to someone who is being sought for criminal offences.

And I if you want to try the refugee angle, Germans define refugees as being those who have a justified fear of being persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, affiliation to a specific social group or political persuasion. So good luck with that, too.

Of course Germany could let you stay anyway. But that would be it then. With their pious preaching about the Rechtsstaat (rule of law) and how the NSA spy scandal demonstrates how the US does not respect it, I mean.

Ecuador und Island in Österreich, Bolivien, Brasilien, China, Kuba, Finnland, Frankreich, Deutschland, Indien, Italien, Irland, Niederlande, Nicaragua, Norwegen, Polen, Russland, Spanien, der Schweiz und Venezuela.

Die Linke hatte bereits in der vergangenen Woche die Bundesregierung dazu aufgefordert, Snowden Asyl zu gewähren. Am Montag hatten dies auch die Grünen in Spiel gebracht. Snowden solle in der EU oder sogar in Deutschland “sichere Unterkunft haben, denn er hat Europa einen Dienst erwiesen”, erklärte Fraktionschef Jürgen Trittin.

More German Gun Control In Action

Germany’s gun control laws are some of the most restrictive in Europe. Unfortunately, not all armed criminals and nutcases who live here appear to have been properly informed.

Gun control

Some idiot just killed three people and injured three more near Aachen, before shooting himself into a coma.

Shootings like this happen quite regulary in this country. Nobody likes to address the issue, other than to suggest introducing even stricter gun control laws, but it happens here quite regularly all the same.

Discussing shootings that take place in US-Amerika, on the other hand, is a downright popular obsession here. This is because Germans feel that Americans need more gun control legislation like the Germans have here in Germany, get it? Me neither.

Der Hintergrund des Amoklaufes ist noch unklar. Man könne nur spekulieren, sagt der Oberstaatsanwalt.

Big Phasehout Payout On The Way

A three-month closure imposed by the government on RWE’s Biblis A and B reactors as an immediate response to the Fukushima accident was illegal, a German court has ruled.

Phaseout

The administrative court for the German state of Hesse has found the state ministry of the environment acted illegally on 18 March 2011 when it issued an order for the immediate closure of the Biblis units.

This decision, as well as a tax on nuclear fuel levied in anticipation of continued operation of nuclear plants before the phaseout decision, have cost German nuclear operators dear: RWE estimated that the phase-out cost the company over €1 billion ($1.3 billion) in 2011 alone.

Any claims for damages against the state of Hesse would be decided in subsequent civil court proceedings.