Mass criminalization feared at the 2006 World Cup - the whole of Germany is being turned into a prison with permanent surveillance. In the name of security and football. Does anyone really believe that the security facilities will be dismantled after the World Cup?
The Internet will become subject to fees! - because a PC is the same as a TV or radio. Probably only in the broken minds of politicians, but unfortunately they decide where things are going. And so the GEZ can freely help themselves in the next area and implement their Gestapo methods.
Survey: Health insurance funds' financial situation worsening again - we're all being fooled. By politicians who promise to lower contribution rates and naturally can't. By funds that are supposed to represent our interests but naturally don't. By doctors who promise cooperation in cost reduction but naturally don't want to give up their income (*). By pharmacists who are supposed to serve as a trusted source for patients but have long since lost that trust.
Of course, the contribution reduction for employers - there's always money for that. Only the patients, they have to pay for all of this again. Funds, doctors, and pharmacists, on the other hand, sit on their vested interests and refuse to contribute even minimally to a reduction that would also affect their income.
Funds then do great things like the family doctor model and the in-house pharmacy model - but it doesn't help if the doctors simply refuse to participate (which happens here in Münster quite often). Correct billing of the practice fee is also rarely experienced - if a prescription is simply picked up, without the doctor providing even a bit of service (except for his signature), if the medication has been taken for years - doesn't matter, the practice fee is quickly taken again.
Quality control of doctors? No show - they refuse, that would be too much influence for the patient. So they continue to hide behind the allegedly free choice of doctor - which has long since become laughable only through the emigration of specialists from the associations of statutory health insurance physicians. In some specialties, as a statutory health insurance patient, you only have a chance in the hospital to meet a really qualified doctor - outside you only find quacks ...
At the same time, more and more politicians and functionaries of the various associations are talking about patients taking more responsibility and having to bear more of the costs. Of course, we are supposed to trust the doctors in consultation. We are supposed to trust the pharmacists in choosing the drug manufacturer. We are supposed to trust the funds in billing. How are we supposed to take on more responsibility in such a situation that is based on trust without control? What does taking responsibility mean in this context at all - it's not about responsibility, it's solely about cost shifting. And risk shifting: What, your complaints have worsened because you stopped the treatment too early because of the costs? Your own fault, why do you do such a thing. If patients are asked to take more responsibility, they must also be given the means to do so in the form of possibilities of influence and controls. Otherwise, these are just empty phrases.
Doctors receive preferential treatment from the pharmaceutical industry and then obediently prescribe their results - it's so conveniently practical and comfortable and you benefit from it. The funds sit there and deal more with their own bureaucracy and their own security than with keeping an eye on the doctors and ensuring that this very connection to the pharmaceutical industry does not get out of hand. The pharmacists fight for the preservation of their privileges and go against any alternative form of drug supply and argue with their consulting services - which, however, de facto often no longer exist, if in a pharmacy only one or two trained pharmacists work, the rest are at best better drugstore clerks ... (and the main turnover in pharmacies is made with care products, gummy bears and all kinds of obscure nonsense - hey, why should one trust people who offer homeopathic nonsense and "advise"?)
And the pharmaceutical industry? They are the laughing fifth in the background. Decent profit margins, of course, reduce jobs, because the margins have to increase. In principle, monopolies through absurd patent policy (I recall the nitrogen patent from Linde - which fortunately was overturned) and an increasingly opaque approval bureaucracy. Of course, medicines must be tested before approval - but what the current tests really bring, one has seen in various cases recently (Lipobay, Vioxx and other COX-2 inhibitors - just to name two cases).
What is needed is a much more radical restructuring of the health system, a restructuring designed to enable the patient to actually take responsibility, because he is given the information he needs for this and because he is given advisory facilities that support him in this.
Separation of the billing system and the control function in the funds - the control function is not sufficiently exercised by them anyway, it belongs to independent institutions financed by mandatory contributions from those involved in the health system (doctors, pharmacists, pharmaceutical industry and proportionally health insurance contributions).
The billing procedures should be handled by independent accounting offices for patients and doctors, which should only finance themselves through their billing services - this is already common practice in the economy, where billing services are outsourced to separate companies that are then financed by shares in the cost savings of the parties involved.
More transparency in the pharmaceutical industry - research results must be released if a company wants to obtain approval for medicines. Many research institutions are partly state-financed anyway or are close to universities through their state affiliation. A transparent testing guideline for medicines must be introduced - one that scientists and physicians can understand and in which these people are involved, so that problems can be detected earlier - and cannot be concealed by the company (as was the case with Vioxx).
At the same time, effective cost control for medicines must be introduced - the justifications with research costs are not sufficient here, the whole thing must be traceable. If you add up the alleged research costs of the pharmaceutical industry from various medicines, you eventually reach the point where the gross domestic product is generated alone in the research institutions of the pharmaceutical industry. Here, there must be much greater transparency in order to effectively prevent price gouging for medicines.
And the pharmacists? Sorry, but they simply have to think about what role they still have. This would include that they take their consulting services seriously again and concentrate on what their task would be: the application advice for medicines and the advice on the use of non-prescription medicines. However, a specialist saleswoman with a drugstore education cannot provide this. Justifying one's own existence with a sales monopoly for medicines is certainly not enough. And reading the package leaflet is not enough either.
(*) Here, of course, doctors in hospitals are excluded - their job is then pretty much the last in the health industry and decent working hours cannot be spoken of for them.
Embarrassing Ackermann finds the criticism and debate of capitalism. Presumably because he holds one of the honorable seats in the target area. The planned massive job cuts despite profits, on the other hand, are of course not embarrassing but completely justified. Says Ackermann. He is just not ashamed of anything ...
Who wants to see the full horror of software patents in real application: search for the patents DE69901832 (German patent) or EP1081612 (European patent) in the patent database (unfortunately, there are no permanent links to patents in this patent database - why not? Stupid software).
A truly great invention: the identification of a session in a web application is not transported in the path part of a URI, in a cookie, or a URI parameter, but in the hostname (wildcard A-record makes it possible). A patent has been granted for something like this - although there are supposedly no pure software patents in Germany. Where exactly is the definition of technicity in this patent? The connection to a tangible device? This is a pure algorithm patent.
If you read through the description and claims, you get the chills: in the description, it is written that extracting the encoding from the path part would be complex and require a lot of computing power - probably this is supposed to be the reason for patentability, so to speak, more efficient access to information. And in the claim, nothing else is described than the use of HTTP/1.1 virtual hosts in combination with a wildcard A-record (or many A-record entries that point to the same IP), so that the session can be extracted from the hostname (which is sent as a header). A truly great intellectual achievement - presumably the entire creative height of it lies in the formulation of the patent application, but certainly not in the actual algorithm or the encoding ...
The patent office simply patents any nonsense that is submitted. There seems to be no control at all - anyone who wants to do something against a patent must first laboriously apply for and enforce the deletion of the patent. If the patentability of algorithms is further facilitated, we will find even more such absurdities. Because if the patent office is already overwhelmed today to carry out these basic checks on general patentability, it will certainly get worse with the new regulation. And this is supposed to bring economic growth? Probably only for patent lawyers ...
Found in the dead-tree version of the current Linux Magazine on page 102.
Various business associations also suffer from swollen heads: Working on Whit Monday again. We are supposed to work more so they can fleece us more. The fact that in reality German public holidays are not actually that many compared to the rest of Europe (among other things through clever solutions in Belgium, where public holidays that fall on Sundays are made up on the following weekday) is completely irrelevant. The fact that this year and last year there were significantly fewer public holidays due to employer-friendly dates is also irrelevant. The fact that, for example, last year was no better despite having significantly fewer public holidays than previous years is completely irrelevant.
The main thing is to open your mouth and make some noise ...
»Guilty as charged« are two left-wing activists. Never mind that one was slapped by the mayor of Giessen - the mayor's word is simply taken at face value. Never mind if the police seem to be lying when they talk about attacks by one of the two activists - police officers can't lie, so they must have told the truth. And all the counter-witnesses are simply not credible. It's great when the judiciary, as an allegedly independent pillar of our constitution, meekly falls in line behind (or in front of?) the executive. It seems that beating down protests and sending protesters to prison through court proceedings is back in fashion ...
Schily will Anti-Terror-Gesetze unbegrenzt verlängern
Bundesrat rejects GMO law - the Union wants us to eat GenFood and what the consequences are and whether, for example, organic farming near Gen-fields is no longer possible (because farmers cannot meet the strict requirements, since genetically modified plants do spread after all), they couldn't care less. The fact that most farmers don't value Genshit at all is also irrelevant. The fact that in the end only the big corporations win and are interested in the whole genetic technology - because they can strangle farmers and squeeze them even more - is probably not irrelevant. Because somewhere the donation millions must come from ...
Genetically modified foods serve the combination (forced combination!) of seeds and fertilizers or crop protection products and the patent protection of the use of the seeds. It directly attacks the classic traditional way of working of farmers - for example, the use of fruit for the next sowing is usually not possible (because infertile) or prohibited (by contract). There is no biological reason in Germany - neither do we have to endure extreme climatic conditions nor particularly catastrophic pest attacks. It is solely about the maximization of the companies that produce the genetically modified seeds.
If you then look at who is behind it, something else becomes apparent: another point is the elimination of the classic production sites for seeds - many of the genetic engineering companies are more associated with the pharmaceutical or chemical industry than with classical agriculture (although there are also black sheep among the seed producers - but these also belong more to the industry). Here, industry is simply moving into an area it could not serve before and wants to break into - ultimately with coercive means.
With genetically modified seeds, not only are foods produced whose consumption is rejected by the majority of consumers - an entire economic sector is also being strangled or possibly even destroyed. At least severely damaged.
Agriculture, through its structures with cooperatives, associations, interest groups and political lobbying, has a fairly large power and influence on its fate - so far. But now the bad guys want to play along, whose goal is exactly the takeover of this - previously self-managed - power.
Of course, the Union - which has repeatedly revealed itself to be industry-dependent - hitches itself to the cart. And of course, our industry chancellor performs this balancing act and Minister Künast has to present a law that is already watered down to the extreme - and even that is rejected in the council (which has a Union majority).
Already read about this in various places (Uhus Webdroppings, Schockwellenreiter), but "Instant Nirvana" sums it up best: Fascists. Oh yes, Schleswig Holstein is heading towards a glorious future if such politicians have a place in the Union there...
"There must be no party to our right" a Bavarian once declared - no problem, the Union simply overtakes DVU, Republicans, and NPD on the far right. Foreigners are out, now the long-term unemployed are being hounded. Of course, everyone knows at least one welfare fraudster who works on the side, they're all just lazy people who need to be motivated and, if necessary, locked up in a virtual prison and monitored, the scum. At least some Union politicians - and unfortunately more and more in the SPD - see the world this way.
Are there actually hiring requirements regarding contempt for humanity, brainlessness, and corruption for politicians? The word "politician" is only an insult for such representatives.
Update: The original author and Hessian Justice Minister naturally meant something completely different. So he says, or his press spokesman:
Wagner's quote should therefore be understood to mean that the ankle monitor also offers "long-term unemployed individuals sentenced to probation and treated addicts" the chance to return to a regular daily routine and be placed in a job, says Fuhrmann.
Of course. Let's just believe him now. Or? Achne, he's from Hesse - from Hetzer-Koch's brown swamp of donations and cronyism.
Well, Otto Orwell has messed up again: a Federal Data Protection Commissioner elected democratically (among others by his own faction) dares to take his role seriously and speak frankly about Otto's data collection mania. And already Otto attacks head-on, accusing him of having no political function and suggesting he should just keep quiet - what nonsense. The Federal Data Protection Commissioner has an important political function: he represents our (the citizens') interests in securing our data and upholding our right to informational self-determination. Among other things, against deranged and data-hungry interior ministers.
Great sign for a banana republic when the executive branch attacks parts of itself that have a controlling function. What's next - Eichel insults the Federal Audit Office as a bunch of bunglers who can't count?
But in the end, it probably just boils down to this: the dogs that are hit bark, of course ...
Judgment against Kanther: Koch should provide an explanation - well, not just an explanation would be appropriate, but what would be right won't happen anyway: Koch's resignation. Because no matter how often he claims he knew nothing, no one believes him. The judgment itself is at least not as weak as the prosecution demanded:
With the penalty of one year and six months' probation and a fine of 25,000 euros for Kanther, the Wiesbaden Regional Court went significantly beyond the prosecution's demand.
Kanther wants to appeal. Let's hope the next higher instance doesn't cave. Although personally, I would have preferred it to say "without probation" ...
Greens drop resistance against missile defense system - the next person who asks me where the money for social system support is supposed to come from: not doing MEADS (along with many other ridiculous military projects) would be a first start.
The more than 800 million that are now being invested in the development of this military nonsense would be better spent elsewhere - and no, there are not many jobs to secure in the arms industry. The arms industry's excuse is simply wrong. Hardly any other industry is already as far rationalized as hardly any other industry.
It's also very nice to see how the big parties show unity in this regard - when it comes to spending citizens' money on nonsense and mindless trash, they quickly agree. Just as when it comes to cutting social benefits.
By the way, there is a fairly simple way to protect soldiers in foreign deployments from enemy rocket attacks: not to carry out foreign deployments ... (and don't tell me the nonsense about defending the Basic Law in the Hindu Kush now)
Schily will pursue sprayers with helicopters - now he has completely flipped out. Because we have way too much money and must throw it out the window for such nonsense.
The judgment in the case of the music industry against heise online is available in writing - and the judges once again prove their incompetence on the internet:
In the opinion of the Munich judges, heise online has deliberately provided assistance in an unauthorized act by setting the link to the company's homepage and is therefore liable as an accomplice according to § 830 BGB like the manufacturer itself. The fact that a download of the software is only possible with two further clicks does not contradict this. The decisive factor is solely that the readers of the report are directed directly to the website via the link set. It is also irrelevant that readers can find the product via a search engine as well. By setting the link, finding the product is made "inconveniently easier" and the risk of infringing on legal rights is significantly increased.
I consider myself - and a large part of the German internet user base - quite capable of finding a product at least as quickly with a search engine and a manufacturer name as well as a product name as with a manufacturer link (depending on the manufacturer's presence, the way via search engine can even be more efficient).
Ok, if the judges explicitly want to exclude themselves from this circle of minimally competent users, fine. But I consider a judgment that presupposes such incompetence in users as a personal insult.
That they did not throw press freedom overboard as well can almost be seen as a stroke of luck in this case ...
Jehovah's Witnesses: Soon a Church in NRW? - what nonsense. I'm already annoyed that this other sect - the Catholic Church - is recognized as a church and thus state-subsidized, but with the Jehovah's Witnesses it really stops. They are not just misogynistic and rigidly hierarchical like the Catholic Church, their structure is even more based on the suppression of the individual. But irrational nonsense is in high demand.
Government study warns of blockade by software patents:
The study urgently demands, in particular, a strengthening of the interoperability clause in the planned EU legal framework. Otherwise, given the still "generous" practice of the European Patent Office (EPA) in granting protection rights for computer programs, there is a risk of destabilization and partial death of the IT market in Germany and Europe.
But Clement - our super pipe of all - still claims that everything is completely made up and that we should keep the church in the village. What a charade at the expense of our own economic location.
And the German companies against software patents won't bother him much either - probably he hears nothing because his head is still up the ass of the big entrepreneurs. That puts pressure on the ear ...
Found via rabenhorst and IsoTopp: How a conference organized by the BSI deals with critical voices - they simply remove them from the planning.
The BSI is an institution under the BMI - and thus our beloved Otto Orwell. Has someone at the BSI gotten cold feet that they could upset the actual master of the house?
Schröder: Arms deliveries to China even against the will of the Bundestag - where would we end up if the opinion of the Bundestag mattered at all, when you can properly export weapons to a country where political opponents - if they are lucky - disappear in prison for life, people are regularly executed and human rights are generally considered a problem for other people.
The economy must hum, and if it's only the arms industry. This does not create jobs - after all, the arms industry is rationalized like no other economic sector - but it brings money to the moneybags and that's the only thing that counts. And ultimately, it is only consistent: in one's own country, employees are sacrificed for the stock price and in China then the political opponents and other inconvenient people.
What a real industrial chancellor is, he does not care about human lives or democracy.
On the topic of software patents, I also contacted the BMWA by fax. While the BMJ sent a polite and factual - albeit, in my opinion, somewhat dreamy and detached from reality given Minister Clement's course - response, the BMWA adopts a tone that I find somewhat snippy (annoyed?):
Dear Mr. ..., thank you for your fax dated March 06, 2005, in which you address the adoption of the directive on computer-implemented inventions in the first reading.
I do not share your criticism of the procedure at all.
The purely formal adoption of a text already decided is absolutely usual, indeed mandatory, due to the linguistic diversity in the EU. This is also the view of the Member States, which had or have substantive concerns. This has nothing to do with disregarding democratic rules of the game. The directive is, by the way, by no means adopted yet.
We are certainly in agreement on the objective. I can assure you that the positive economic development of the software industry is close to my heart. However, the often-expressed claims that patent protection for software would be newly introduced or expanded are factually incorrect. Despite all criticism in detail, one should "keep the church in the village".
The German software industry has developed economically well under the existing legal framework with computer program patents. This will not change fundamentally through international harmonization. We are explicitly not taking the path in Europe that is rather progressive and, above all, hostile to small and medium-sized enterprises, as in the USA. The two legal systems differ significantly here.
Yours sincerely on behalf of
Thomas Zuleger
Well. Suspension of democratic decisions and ignoring one's own federal parliament is for Minister Clement just mandatory. Great. Really gives me confidence that we will be well represented by this minister on this issue ...
Easier access for intelligence agencies to accounts and travel data demanded - what is a right-wing agitator against informational self-determination and data protection actually doing in the SPD? Oh yes, I forgot, Otto Orwell is also in the SPD. Strange party, calls itself "social" and has a bunch of asocial people sitting in Berlin ...
Stolpe recommends: Highways for the upswing, yes, very big ideas:
"There must be no more delay tactics by environmental associations. The sudden discovery of hamsters to block ongoing construction projects will no longer be possible," Stolpe told the magazine "Focus".
Of course, the evil environmental associations prevent the highway enthusiasts from being able to pave the entire republic - with even more shitty roads that no one needs, while the existing roads are rotting away because no repairs are carried out (or if they are, such botch jobs occur that they have to be repeated after a short time).
young world from 03/18/2005 - ARD institutions against jW - what the ARD broadcasting institutions spend our GEZ fees on. Hmm. If public broadcasters take action against free press, does that then threaten cultural diversity and is that then a quite sufficient reason for a boycott call against the GEZ?
Well, the Federal Schröder really wants to blow money up the ass of big corporations through corporate tax cuts. Yes, exactly, the companies that either made huge profits and laid off large numbers of employees, or alternatively made huge losses and laid off large numbers of employees while increasing executive salaries. This will definitely boost the job market.
And the opposition? They call what the Chancellor proposes conceptless, which is correct - we already knew that. Because these are partly exactly the demands that Merkelnix and the Oberstauber themselves have made - and what the opposition is doing has been completely conceptless for quite some time ...
What I don't quite understand is how this nonsense is supposed to combat unemployment? Oh, the highways that the Federal Schröder wants to build (or whatever great traffic projects he has in mind). Well, then our tanks will soon be rolling quickly to Hindukush, where they are supposed to defend the Basic Law according to Strucki. Although this is actually much more urgently needed here in this country given Otto Orwell and the sheer incompetence of the Ministry of Justice (but perhaps it's better not to, given the rather strange attitudes in the Bundeswehr ...).
Somehow, the German politicians and their market rhetoric would be much funnier if they were governing a country other than precisely the country in which one lives ...
Basic rights without reason or ground - how citizens' basic rights are trampled on in the name of security.
After the Job Summit: Agreement on Tax Cuts - great concept. We don't have any money, but we give it away to companies. Who then screw us over again and cut more jobs, which means fewer people consume even less, and in the end, the economy complains again. And everyone pats themselves on the back for the great achievement they have accomplished.
In Kiel, the prime minister has to fail at a traitor from her own ranks and is probably forced into a grand coalition. In Berlin, pure lack of planning and stupidity is enough, without any elections. But the Berlin proletarians are really good at making decisions against the citizens ...
Found in the young world: Bayerns Blinde sollen gefälligst zu Hause bleiben. As a blind person, you probably feel really well taken care of with a health insurance like that ...
There is no other way to interpret the lies about the position of the Ministry of Economic Affairs on the patent directive. There is a clear and unanimous resolution of the Bundestag. But the Ministry of Economic Affairs shits on the opinion of the parliament as well as the experts.
By the way, the given example of "time and space-saving data storage" is exactly what indicates the problems: there have always been problems with patents on compression algorithms that de facto sealed formats for use in open source programs - which is a considerable obstacle to the interoperability that is being discussed everywhere. Microsoft would only have to store the XML formats in a proprietary binary XML format and could thus prevent, by patent, open source software in Europe from reading the documents.
Other - older - examples of exactly this problem are GIF storage and the LZW algorithm. Both have caused massive problems with interoperability and exactly that is what we will also face in Europe with the current directive.
The claim of the Ministry of Economic Affairs that there is nothing to fear is therefore nothing more than a stupid and transparent lie. Ultimately, the federal government is playing into the hands of the industry giants here, and at the expense of the middle class and open source software.
More on this, as usual, at the FFII.
heise online - Absprachen über Vorratsdatenspeicherung lösen Empörung aus
According to a result paper of the backroom talks with Deutsche Telekom, which is available to heise online, investigators and intelligence agencies are pushing for a storage period of 180 days for IP addresses and login data, the connection data in a landline call and in the mobile communications sector, in addition, the location identifier and "if necessary card number (IMSI) or identifier of the terminal device (IMEI)". Deutsche Telekom is said to have agreed to archive the corresponding personal data for this period. Currently, the company stores data for 90 days. Contrary to the requirements of the security authorities, Schily and Zypries are considering storing data for one year.
Great. The demands of the intelligence agencies are already absurd to the extreme - especially in mobile communications, this results in continuous tracking of all mobile subscribers - and Otto Orwell and the combined incompetence of the Ministry of Justice are even demanding more. Great democracy, I feel so safe with so much surveillance.
Pläne für EU-Beschluss: Bundesregierung will das gläserne Handy - not only the mobile phone, but also email connection data, SMS connection data, etc. are to be stored centrally. What utter nonsense. On the one hand, it is absurd to create these amounts of data when only a tiny fraction of them is relevant to the authorities. On the other hand, it is even more absurd that this whole mess is paid for by tax money and indirectly by customers through the burden on companies. We are paying for our own surveillance.
It is always shocking how far this SPD government is willing to go to fulfill Schily's paranoia and the omnipotence fantasies of intelligence agencies and parts of the law enforcement authorities.
It is time to promote projects like tor, pgp, and similar services and combinations thereof (how about Internet telephony over tor, encrypted and signed with PGP keys?). Tor, in particular, plays an important role in hindering connection analysis. This general suspicion by the state is simply unacceptable.
However, it is a permanent mystery to me why allegedly left-wing politicians do not take notice when their proposals receive applause from prolethicians like Beckstein. Where are the supposedly concerned people who wanted to advocate for the interests of citizens? Where do they stand against the hardliner direction of Schily and his ilk?
Zypries will DNA-Tests ausweiten
Moreover, Zypries wants to restrict the so-called judicial reserve: In the case of anonymous crime scene traces and with the consent of a suspect to the test, a judicial order would no longer be required.
Not only can a repeat burglar end up in the genetic database according to the draft - at least if the police think he might also do more than just burglaries (and to secure the data we simply suspect everyone) - but the last hurdle, namely the judicial decision, is also simply bypassed.
Otto Orwell is working on 1984 and the combined incompetence of the Ministry of Justice on the police state. I did learn that the Ministry of the Interior is responsible for the police and the Ministry of Justice for the courts, and that the separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary should also be reflected in these ministries, but that was probably just a rumor ...
In any case, both are working hand in hand to dismantle the liberal component of our democracy - more efficiently than any Union government. And the opposition is laughing at the stupidity of the government - they are doing all the things that a Union government would not have dared to do, as they would have had to fear re-election ...
400,000 Euro severance for Laurenz Meyer - wow, yes, certainly these were very tough negotiations in which he managed to pocket another 400,000 euros. He will surely also waive the 80,000 euros that he was going to donate to SOS Children's Villages anyway. That's how you really cash in - Meyer shows how it's done.
I'm curious to see if RWE will keep their word and transfer the money...
By the way: take a look at what comes up on Google when you search for Laurenz Meyer. And I think this can get a bit "nicer"
In the young world: Poverty is female. On the occasion of International Women's Day, a reminder that the equality of women in society is by no means fulfilled or even completed - on the contrary, the current social cutbacks in Germany particularly affect women. Surely, politicians will now find a whole bunch of great reasons why we are just imagining all this.
By the way, for the next election, one could also take a look at what the corresponding parties have to say about the topic of women's equality ...
Wladimir Kaminer: Ein Vorschlag zur Güte - wirres, konsequent alles falsch describes the situation for people entering the country. Jutta's brother had some experience with this topic (entering Germany, applying for visas, etc.) a few years ago in Hamburg. His wife (Thai) brought two children into the marriage. They have a third child together. Of the two children from the first marriage, she could only bring the younger girl to Germany - she had to give up the boy (under 16 at the time of the application!) to at least have her daughter in Germany. Can anyone imagine what this means for a mother?
Sorry, but all the politicians who scream about how dangerous and bad all the people who apply for visas are should be thrown out of the country and have their German passports taken away. And then they should try to get back into the country through our great embassies and consulates ...
Unbelievable - despite the resistance of various national parliaments and the clear vote of the European Parliament, the software patents directive was pushed through today. And then this corrupt and deceitful bunch wonders why citizens no longer take politics seriously when they trample democracy underfoot.
Disgusting, Mr. Clement, how you ignore and trample the clear request of the Bundestag. Disgusting how you, with your arrogance, think you have to cause more damage to the economic location than the 16 years of Kohl's government managed to achieve. Disgusting how you, with your stupidity, drive another nail into the coffin of the European IT industry - just to crawl up to some multinational corporations that won't create any jobs anyway.
As Johnny from Spreeblick, I find the behavior of the Union politicians with their great "letter" to the government simply disgusting. When you look at the points listed, it's just hot air and nothing behind it. Talk. In part, it's even talk that has nothing to do with the actual problem - just the same empty phrases from Merkelnix and Stauber thrown together and chewed through again - without any nutritional value.
SPD: "No tax relief for foreign top earners" - Koch wants to make it even easier and more lucrative for the Ackermanns of this world to fleece the German economy ...
According to Report Mainz state genetic controllers are advertising for genetically modified corn:
According to investigations by the ARD magazine, Buhk also participated in organizing a major event for the German biotech company Phytowelt GmbH in 2004. Buhk had already been warned by the Federal Ministry of Health in 2002 about the "danger of a conflict of interest" and his "official duties."
We recently had the topic of the fox guarding the henhouse ...
IMPOSSIBLE The LawBlog finds it remarkable that the Mainz police broke into an apartment to remove a banner reading "Not welcome, Mr. Bush". Well, the problem is, if we had the liberal state of law he speaks of, this would really be impossible. But we have a neo-liberal mess - and neo-liberal is as similar to liberal as National Socialist is to socialism ...
Künast: The directive will pass through the Council next Monday - at least according to a letter sent to the FFII. What madness - several national parliaments and the European Parliament have spoken out against the software patent directive, and yet the point is again on the agenda as a top priority - which would be confirmed only formally without substantive discussion.
I don't quite understand why, on the one hand, the EU Council keeps trying to push through such nonsense instead of finally bringing the whole thing back to the European Parliament for a new proposal - but I could still explain that with corruption (it wouldn't be new if the EU bodies were once again engaged in serious horse-trading).
But why the national governments are acting against the opinion of their own parliaments (in Germany, this was a decision of all factions in the Bundestag!) and against the opinion of their own European deputies (in the European Parliament, the rejection also had a large majority) is incomprehensible.
I can only speculate about the motivation of the other national parliaments of the EU. But I want to know the motivation of the Federal Minister of Justice responsible according to the letter from the Künast office and the federal government she represents - it is simply absolutely incomprehensible to me how action is being taken here completely against the will of one's own parliament.
Fax to the BMJ has been sent. You should do the same. 01888 580 9525
BA will Betreuung älterer ostdeutscher Arbeitsloser abgeben - how to create new serfs and at the same time beautify the unemployment statistics ...
Bush in Mainz reports on the restrictions residents in Mainz received during the Bush visit. Welcome to the police state Germany - where even peace symbols in the window are not allowed for flimsy security reasons ...
DGB on Training Pact: "Vocational Training is Being Nationalized" - did anyone really believe this absurd training pact would prompt the economy to actually create apprenticeship positions? They're not even interested in training people themselves and thus securing the skilled workers they need. When there's a shortage of skilled workers, it's much easier to cry out for some ridiculous green card projects - and politicians are dumb enough to go along with it. And when you don't need people anymore because profits have risen, you just throw them out.
A mandatory levy is certainly problematic - not because of the levy itself, but because business executives will use it again as a flimsy excuse to lay people off because they supposedly wouldn't be competitive otherwise - but it's probably the only way to force the economy to actually train people.
Of course, the real solution would be if business executives actually used their brains again and maybe even rediscovered their social responsibility. But who still believes in that in times of Esser and Ackermann? Or the Daimler CEO without a Rolex, but with doubled salary despite declining profits? Does anyone really credit these rip-off artists with even rudimentary social competence?
By the way, the whole thing about competitiveness on the international market is quite a farce as an argument when Germany consistently keeps expanding exports and raking in record profits in export-oriented sectors. How does that work if our system is supposedly so uncompetitive on the international market?
junge welt vom 15.02.2005 - Hungerlohn für Nachhilfe reports on the displacement of normal employment relationships by one-euro jobs. It was to be expected that this measure, too, would not really create jobs, but ultimately destroy jobs. But it is already a mockery that among the first to abuse one-euro jobs is the public sector itself ...
Friday 06 - The Plunderers Are Coming. On the sell-off of Germany as a business location through the arrogance, stupidity and narrow-mindedness of politicians and business leaders in Germany:
No matter how often politicians like Schröder talk about important investments for Germany as a business location and invoke the jobs that will be created as a result - reality looks different. "Statistics are deceiving," the Handelsblatt states. "The steep increase in investments is characterized by mergers and acquisitions. And on balance, these have destroyed more jobs than they have created." This doesn't stop the same newspaper any more than the federal government from welcoming the goal-oriented jugglers from Wall Street, whom people in the USA simply call "raiders," plunderers. Completely wrong - says the Chancellor. These companies have "courage, principles and vision."
As it says so nicely in Uhu's Weblog:
The economy - at least in the long term - must serve people; but the principle of economy for economy's sake is illegitimate and thus insane?
Well. But who explains that to the industrial chancellor and his henchmen? Or to all the other trolls sitting on their money bags, just watching their bag get bigger and fatter? Work must pay - that's the only thing you hear from that direction. Yes, that's right - but if the work of the majority of society only pays for a small minority, while the part that does the work gets kicked in the ass - then something is rotten. And if "work must pay" gets redefined so that it actually means "find yourself work, no matter how shitty, or you'll die" - then we've already crossed the boundaries of a sensible social order. And that's why Uhu is probably right: first it has to go bang. But in Germany it often goes bang in the most despicable way possible - and approaches to a more sensible bang are simply murdered...
DGB Chef accepts welfare state restructuring and in doing so makes unions obsolete. I had written a longer text here, but somehow after my recent content deletion I no longer have it available. If anyone still has it in their RSS reader, please let me know, otherwise it's just gone.
Schily's new initiative for refugee camps in Africa - I'll refrain from commenting on this, as most of them would probably lead to defamation suits.
China: Executions for social peace? - will certainly not greatly dampen our industrial chancellor's enthusiasm for the large Chinese market ...
Clement for raising the retirement age - great idea. First they crank up the weekly working hours. Then the working lifetime. And then we're back where we once were: workers exit the stage in a socially acceptable manner before reaching retirement age. And suddenly the pension insurance is doing better again.
Stoiber claims Red/Green is responsible for the NPD's success - of course their success is certainly not due to the constant right-wing flirtation of the Union parties and the FDP. No, it's absolutely absurd to believe that voters who constantly read verbal attacks on foreigners from the opposition and are repeatedly drilled with how terrible the many immigrants are might eventually vote one level further to the right.
In times when Chancellor Kohl held fiery speeches against foreigners, there were also firebombs against asylum seeker homes.
Of course, unemployment and the general economic situation of these people is a significant factor - but that is not insignificantly determined by the Union-governed states. How many initiatives were blocked in the Bundesrat because they didn't go far enough for the Union parties? I cannot see where the CSU's anti-foreigner agitation and the constant demands for even more welfare cuts by the CDU and FDP are supposed to contain any perspectives that should motivate NPD voters to vote for a different party.
Sorry, but all the major parties can claim the NPD's successes - they botched them together. The naivety of Müntefering is just ridiculous - of course the voters are the cause of the NPD's success. But the major parties lay the groundwork just as much as the rest of society. To claim anything else would mean that daily politics are not part of society and social development - and that is highly absurd.
And sorry, but platitudes like those from our Federal President don't help either - if what happened in Saxony was really a wake-up call, where are the awakened politicians? Are they hiding under the bed in fear now? Where is the factual engagement, where is the categorical rejection - when NPD politicians repeatedly receive sympathetic votes in Saxony? When a minister-president of a certain Hesse writes forewords to ultra-right books? When Union politicians themselves give fiery speeches or support party members who repeatedly make blatantly antisemitic statements?
The loss of reality of some politicians is reaching frightening proportions. People, you are part of society - and your actions determine the direction of society like the actions of no other population group. And as part of society, you are part of the problem.