Official pre-formulated text on the right of withdrawal is invalid - yet another example of our federal justice bungling ...
bananenrepublik - 27.1.2006 - 3.8.2006
Kinderschutzbund: "Insurance companies must pay for anesthetics" - please what? Professional anesthesia should be removed from the service catalog? Have they completely lost their minds in Berlin?
Police officers criticize statements by the federal data protection officer on mass genetic tests - yes yes, the security of our citizens. Important. Especially also the efficiency. Where would we end up if every Tom, Dick, and Harry data protection officer would criticize there. Strange only, that with all this efficiency and security, the mass genetic tests actually don't find any perpetrators ...
Banken: Vollstrecker aus Texas - Real estate locusts. Surely, many will now feel the need to explain to me why it's not that bad after all ...
Uncertain future for Fraunhofer Institute in Darmstadt - now begins the scrapping of the GMD remnants. Nothing will remain of what was once a top-class research forge. How strategically cleverly orchestrated by the politicians and the officials of the Fraunhofer Society ...
RWE will Strompreise erneut erhöhen | tagesschau.de - Record profits. Of course, prices must be raised.
Employment Agency: Decrees on the Net - just a little more transparency. And even that you have to fight for in court. That's how our Freedom of Information Act looks like ...
Cheap and willing - Exploitation of volunteers. So that the fat cats can get richer. And anyway - the unemployed have plenty of time for volunteer work.
Grand coalition agrees on tightening anti-terrorism laws - well, that was obvious. All the surveillance measures so far have not brought any significant success, so they cheer each other on in Berlin and expand them right away. Fits the picture of Berlin's intellectual poverty.
Shrinking health insurance companies? - oh yes, first privatization and opening are allegedly the key to happiness. Then the small insurers (who are often the more efficient ones) are to be destroyed. Does anyone still believe that our politics are not bought?
The State Disempowers Itself
If you follow their arguments, you get the impression that the country is being ruled by criminals, unscrupulous people, and the mentally ill, who are renovating public property to the detriment of the citizens and in the service of private companies for their own benefit.
Well noticed.
Hartz-IV fraud: 'Our image of man was too positive' - well, my image of Struck was probably too positive. So he is just as much of a fool as the other proletarians in Berlin ...
Despite rising sales, industry is cutting jobs - and yet prolethicians still believe in regulation by the economy.
Sale of NRW University Hospitals? - oh yes, privatization. Alleged panacea of our time. In reality, just as much quackery as snake oil.
Bundestag beschließt staatlich verordnetes Verhungern - a good comment on the Bundestag's decision to reduce benefits to zero for unemployed people who "refuse" three times (I wonder how many politicians would accept one of the "offers" ...)
The world naked at friends' places - how convenient for the police to simply define their profile so that all young women fall under it and then get backing from the court when they force women to undress for no reason ... Rule of law? Forget it.
Klinikstreik: Are cash patients not emergencies? - the types of surgeries performed despite the strike, I'm not surprised. But the strong preference for private patients that comes through - something like this can already reduce the acceptance of the doctors' strike.
Kauder warns against the publication of the BND report - due to alleged endangerment of the work of the BND. That this work of the BND endangers our constitutional rights, of course, does not matter at all ...
In the mills of welfare - what it used to mean to be a foster child - and what it might mean again?
Off to the Welfare State?
ZAF does not recognize the FRG at all - and I also have my difficulties finding what I once understood as a youngster under the FRG. That I once took an oath to a constitution in a Trachtenverein, which was so undermined and shattered by the proletarians in Berlin, is somehow absurd. Ok, the whole Trachtenverein is absurd, but the oath to the constitution is completely ridiculed if it is so easy for politics to throw the basic values overboard.
News from the Christianism Mullahs
«Education Alliance» with Churches launched - what is this nonsense? The church has no place in the state. And why on earth should their outdated and partly simply absurd (I'm thinking of their stance on abortion, birth control, homosexuality, etc.) now also be state-sanctioned? Are we in America, or what?
And the press? They are at most outraged that other religions were excluded. What is this nonsense - we should finally leave this behind. If someone thinks that values education is necessary, then introduce ethics classes, but please ones that are free of religious nonsense!
Incitement to hatred Part III - Public Prosecutor vs. Alvar Freude - Public Prosecutor's Block Wardens still on a censorship spree.
Educational Goal: Myth Instead of Knowledge!
The Prolethicians in Düsseldorf have finally lost their minds, as they are advocating for a reference to God in the education law:
A draft law by the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia intends the following reformulation for §2 of the school law: "To awaken reverence for God, respect for the dignity of man, and willingness for social action is the highest goal of education."
As an atheist, I feel personally attacked and offended by such nonsense. We have a separation of state and religion in Germany - and it should stay that way. The demand for reverence towards a superstitious institution is an absurdity and an insult to every atheist and has simply no place there.
Federal Minister of Justice without Insight
This federal windbag is really starting to get on my nerves. Is it now a prerequisite for a ministerial position to be completely brainless and not understand anything at all? The impact on private individuals is not the lawsuits of the public prosecutor's office - but the collection of personal data by the public prosecutor's office (which they still have to do even if they do not file a lawsuit themselves). That's what the mass claimants are after - so that they can then sue on a private basis. Where private individuals are left alone because copyright issues are not covered by many legal protection insurances.
A real blockbuster, how in Berlin once again the interests of citizens are traded for a dilapidated and money-greedy industry and their legal apparatus ...
Great SAP Work Environment
After so many people have cried to me that SAP has such a great corporate philosophy that is incompatible with works councils, there is now a clear statement from the company management:
SAP would then see the possibility of establishing research laboratories in Latin America or Eastern Europe, and of intensifying the competition between the ten laboratories currently existing worldwide. One would then be global enough, but nevertheless more than half of the world's development capacities would still be concentrated in Walldorf.
Yeah, people, keep telling yourselves you don't need a works council. Dreamers ...
Karlsruhe: Rezzo Schlauch advises EnBW - News | SWR.de - Money doesn't stink after all ...
What CEOs Learn Today ...
... contains nothing about the Works Constitution Act
The pillars of the company are "justice, openness, and common sense," not the Works Constitution Act. "With all due respect for the protection of minorities," he does not understand the "legislator when a 9% majority can dictate the conditions to the others," wrote Plattner. Around 91% of the staff at the SAP headquarters in Walldorf had voted against a works council.
First of all, to Heise: that was 91% of the employees who participated in the election. That is significantly less than 91% of the entire staff, even at the headquarters. But never mind. Because the real bombshell is that the company's co-founder and current chairman of the supervisory board actually believes that the Works Constitution Act is not the basis of his company. Dreamer. Funny enough, it's in the law book, Mr. Plattner. How stupid do you have to be as a company boss to let something so rarely stupid slip out? Well, it will probably be the new unit of measurement for company boss stupidity: one Plattner = ignoring an entire set of laws ...
According to Spiegel, the company now wants to propose its own electoral committee for the works council elections, which will most likely consist of employee representatives of the supervisory board and not those colleagues who wanted to enforce the works council with the support of IG Metall. The company would thus preempt the labor court, which could appoint an electoral committee.
Oh, and the electoral committee does not prescribe anything at all - and has nothing to do with the protection of minorities. The electoral committee simply ensures the proper conduct of works council elections, nothing more. And whether an electoral committee appointed by such a stupid company management is capable of doing so, I dare to doubt.
Perhaps it's time for the company management to finally understand what works council elections are: the election of employee representatives by all employees of a company. Regardless of how few are the reason for the election, every employee (ok, a few exceptions with AT contracts exist) may vote, and almost everyone may stand for election (a few more exceptions compared to the active right to vote - executive employees are excluded from the passive right to vote). And yes, this usually means that in companies of corresponding size, several lists are up for election - usually one from the union (or more correctly, a list of unionized employees) and often a list of loyalists. There is no limit to this - how about a list of women working in the company? That could certainly be interesting for SAP. Or a list of young employees. Or simply a list of those who don't feel like having a works council, even that would be completely legal.
But to understand this, the people at SAP would have to take the trouble to read the Works Constitution Act. You can't expect such idiots to do that, instead they prefer to embarrass themselves publicly ...
Back to the Concentration Camp Chickens
Several federal states want to overturn the ban on laying hen batteries:
In several federal states, there are efforts to overturn the ban on laying hen batteries. Spokespeople for the ministries of agriculture in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia confirmed a report by the news magazine "Der Spiegel" that there is broad support for the reintroduction of small cages for laying hens. According to the report, the initiative is also supported by Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Great. What a fantastic idea. Let's just turn back the clock. What, there were once reasons to move away from battery cages? Doesn't matter, who cares. Great, the cages meet the EU requirements - but your intelligence is below the minimum requirements for humanity. So that animal cruelty becomes standard again - no matter how undignified it is for a supposedly intelligent and sentient being as the perpetrator. The main thing is that the money flows. Everything else doesn't interest anyone.
Data greed is awesome?
One can almost see the drool dripping from the corners of the mouths of the police officials and the minister when reading the article about the Federal Constitutional Court ruling on the seizure of computers and emails. Funny, how the politicians only mention in passing that the seizure itself was absolutely not in order - instead, they immediately start screaming for legal extensions so that even more can be collected.
The restriction of the Federal Constitutional Court - that seizures must be proportional and appropriate - can certainly be forgotten, because no one will take that into account. And with the constant change in communication structures towards electronic means, one can then safely consider the secrecy of telecommunications as a done deal.
Sacrificing Jobs on the Altar of Stock Prices
The Deutsche Telekom presents record figures - but because the stock price is poorly valued, 32,000 jobs have to be cut. How, companies also have a responsibility? Nonsense, ownership only obliges to want more ownership. Stock prices don't buy telephones, order DSL, and download music from silly second-rate online offers.
Censorship by Lawyer
The expected abuse of the - not yet final and legally specialized - judgment against Heise for use as a censorship hammer. And no, not even the judge himself meant that his judgment could be generally applied to forums, but what do lawyers care. Somehow, threatening, intimidating, and extorting money from people used to be considered a sign of the mafia ...
What Company Founders Imagine
No sooner do SAP employees want to establish a works council, than the SAP founder questions the company's headquarters in Walldorf:
Two days before a works meeting is held at SAP on Thursday with the aim of electing a works council, company founder Dietmar Hopp intensifies his warnings: The installation of a works council is a "backdoor for IG Metall", said Hopp, who rejects the rigid ideas of the union officials regarding working hours: "If someone has to ask the union whether I can call California at eleven o'clock tonight, then good night beautiful SAP", Hopp illustrated his concerns to Handelsblatt.com – "in the worst case" Walldorf as the location of the corporate headquarters is in danger, said the longtime chairman of the supervisory board, who withdrew from the committee altogether almost a year ago.
Exactly. Companies with a works council are not allowed to call abroad. With such pitiful babbling from company bosses and managers, I really wonder what makes these flatheads so special that they have to rake in so much money? Competence - whether professional (because labor law belongs to the professional field of a manager for me) or human, the founder of SAP has quite simply dropped his pants here, and what comes to light is simply just an ass.
Also shocking is the incitement against the unions from the alleged employee representatives - if you read through their outpourings, you are not surprised that the employees at SAP now want a works council. At least they have a real chance that someone is sitting there who actually represents the employees and not just his supervisory board position ...
Addendum: how well FUD works can be seen in the result. And how the alleged business papers slap their thighs with joy. Too bad for the employees of SAP - because sooner or later they will probably learn the hard way how stupid the idea is to waive their co-determination rights. But the polemic that a works council would only be controlled by the union (which is ridiculous, because it still depends on the elected works council members what they do) and that a works council allegedly does not fit the corporate culture has probably worked better than common sense. It is, however, typical daydreaming of employees in the IT industry, it was the same 20 years ago in the computer center. They had to learn it later too ...
How to rip off customers
RWE makes high profits at the expense of customers:
The energy company is boasting. The operating result exceeds the expectations of experts and even the slight decline in sales is not surprising. The main reason for the windfall was the high electricity prices.
Of course, the electricity price increase was solely determined by external factors and had nothing to do with RWE simply exploiting its regional monopoly. In this context, the statement from the NRW Ministry of Economic Affairs, which might want to cut the extortion by 25%, is rather laughable - because the entire electricity price increase simply serves to enrich the RWE corporation.
Contaminated Cook
Koch advocates for a longer operating period for the "most unsafe" nuclear power plant:
The Hessian Prime Minister Roland Koch, on the other hand, spoke out in favor of an extension of the operating period. It is in the interest of the state to keep the power plant in operation for as long as possible, especially if the operator RWE is willing to upgrade the reactor, said the CDU politician in the state parliament.
What, this thing is one of the most failure-prone and unsafe power plants in Germany? What, the power plant has repeatedly been involved in incidents and the operator has repeatedly been involved in attempting to cover up these incidents? But of course, we simply believe the operator when he says he is upgrading and securing the power plant. Just as we believe him when he says that the whole increase in electricity prices is not simply intended to increase his profit at the expense of the citizens.
Signs of Crisis
The world's largest chemical company, BASF, ended 2005 with a record result. As the company announced, sales rose by 14 percent to 42.7 billion euros. The annual surplus increased by 50 percent to 3 billion euros. And BASF also sees itself well equipped for the current year.
Oh, yes, the profit in the field of nutrition and plant protection has a declining profit - well, the politicians will certainly provide BASF with record profits with an increasing trend with the seed regulation, if the industry has finally succeeded in tying farmers to their seeds, fertilizers, and poisons.
Also cute are the high profits in the oil and gas sector. Of course, the price increases in these areas are solely due to the high costs and have nothing to do with the fact that oil and gas companies want to increase their profits. (Yes, BASF is also busy in the natural gas sector - for example, through Wintershall, a company of the BASF Group).
What do the 3,600 BASF employees in Ludwigshafen, whose positions were cut in 2004, think of this corporate development? Especially those who were not pushed out through severance packages or partial retirement, but through transfer to a temporary employment agency?
The Real Reason Behind Hartz IV?
When you see 1-Euro-Jobbers being used as strikebreakers against VERDI, you might start to have some strange thoughts:
1-Euro-Jobbers are now being used as strikebreakers against the strike in the service sector. In the Lower Saxony city of Osnabrück, Hartz IV recipients are being forced by the public employer to drive the municipal garbage trucks. At the beginning of the week, this had to be enforced by a massive police operation against the strikers.
But of course, the 1-Euro-Jobs are only about preparing people for work and motivating them. What they are supposed to be motivated to do through such actions, however ...
Showing off testosterone-damaged proletarians
Isn't it cute how the defense minister puffs up about completely theoretical scenarios?
Since the Constitutional Court has overturned the so-called shoot-down paragraph, there is not even a legal basis for the shoot-down of unmanned or exclusively terrorist-occupied aircraft in the event of terrorist threats. This would only be possible in self-defense in the event of a state of emergency beyond the law. "In that case, I would also issue a corresponding order." As defense minister, he is obliged to protect citizens from such an attack.
The poor guy - so far there has not been a single terrorist attack with drones or exclusively terrorist-occupied aircraft, nor has there been any indication of plans in that direction, but it certainly sounds very manly when you let the big macho out.
What an inflated blowhard.
Bavarian Ministry of the Interior against the Basic Law
How was that about discrimination again? Bavaria wants to deny passports to those seeking naturalization who support the PDS:
In addition to the long-standing practice of routinely inquiring with the domestic intelligence agency, Bavaria plans to ask every person seeking naturalization in the future whether they are a member of or support any of the organizations classified as extremist by the Munich Interior Ministry. The basis for this is a list of all organizations monitored by the Bavarian domestic intelligence agency, which has included the PDS since 1990. In individual cases, as confirmed by the spokesperson of the Bavarian Interior Ministry, Thomas Ziegler, on Wednesday to junge Welt, non-German members of the Left Party may therefore be denied naturalization. Even purchasing publications from the Left Party.PDS or attending party events could be interpreted as "support."
Article 1, Paragraph 3: No one may be disadvantaged or privileged because of their gender, descent, race, language, homeland and origin, beliefs, religious or political views. No one may be disadvantaged because of their disability. - but Beckstein certainly wants to change that too.
And when will they found the Stasi again?
The German Bundestag supports suspicionless surveillance of telecommunications:
With almost all the votes of the grand coalition, the Bundestag decided today, Thursday, after an intense debate, to apply for the storage of telephone and internet data for six months (PDF file). The federal government is thus called upon to implement the directive, approved by the European Parliament, for recording user traces "with moderation" and in the "minimum requirements". The directive must first be confirmed by the EU Council, which the ministers of justice and the interior have planned for the beginning of next week.
You have to let that sink in: the Bundestag is demanding the implementation of the EU directive - before the EU Council has even confirmed this directive itself. With such commitment, we can be sure that the federal government will massively push to destroy the last bit of data protection on the net.
The fact that the whole story in the EU was massively discussed among the states themselves and that the current approach is nothing more than a brazen collusion to push it through - that doesn't matter. We also only creatively interpret the Basic Law when we plan to murder innocent people, so why shouldn't we also serve the rights of citizens on a silver platter to the surveillance authorities.
All of this, of course, garnished with the squealing of "data protection is protection for criminals" and other smear slogans. Where are the great investigative successes through the already existing excessive surveillance possibilities? No presentable results - because it's all just stupid lies.
Disgusting, how under the guise of fighting terrorism, citizens are betrayed and sold out. With what persistence our elected representatives shit on our rights and only have a police state in mind - red or black, both just scum. They all outraged themselves about the GDR, and now they are all so keen on building the same surveillance state themselves.
Management by Stupidity or by Corruption?
How is the ALGII software actually doing?
The subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom has, however, by now realized that the existing solution is "no longer repairable." There are simply too many fundamental errors in the software's architecture.
Ok, so far, so bad. And what is the Federal Employment Agency doing? Quite simple:
The series of mishaps with the unemployment software A2LL has, according to information from Netzeitung, prompted the Federal Employment Agency (BA) to commission T-Systems with the programming of a completely new software. "T-Systems is working on a fundamental solution," it was said in circles familiar with the situation. The creation of a new program is taking place "within the framework of the existing contract." The BA did not want to comment on request from Netzeitung.
Translated: someone has massively messed up a software, admits themselves that it is no good and gets the order for a new software within existing contracts (i.e. without tender!). This is how our tax money and unemployment insurance contributions are wasted. And the reason?
The crucial point for the BA is the compatibility with A2LL. "It must be possible to easily take over all eight million data records," it was said. For this reason, the authority has also decided to commission T-Systems again with the programming. It is important to have T-Systems "on board," even if the company is partly responsible for the A2LL fiasco. The BA has explicitly decided against the decentralized solution of the company Prosoz.
Please what? There was an alternative solution offered. But the loser from last time was used again to make the data records transferable? Who guarantees this? T-Systems has already proven its inability - why does anyone believe that they can correctly transfer the data if they cannot process it correctly?
Data transfers are really not tied to individuals or companies - instead of making the goat the gardener again, T-Systems should have been obliged to document and disclose all interfaces, data formats, and structures. And then make a tender based on this - and simply define compatibility with the old data base as a condition. This time, please with severe penalty clauses for non-fulfillment.
Either someone in the project management at the BA is completely incompetent, or completely corrupt. I can't think of any other explanation. When you consider the debacle with the online system, the whole thing becomes clear - with the money that was squandered there, one could have helped some unemployed people well over the winter.
Data Protection and Security Interests
A real gem from the Niedersachsen data protection dispute, which concerns the transfer of data protection functions to the Interior Ministry:
Critics fear that moving to the Interior Ministry could compromise the independence of oversight. Minister Schünemann dismissed this concern but acknowledged that security interests and data protection interests are not always aligned.
Wow, what a novel idea, who would have thought that conflicts with data protection interests might exist in the Interior Ministry? Could this perhaps be the reason why data protection officers should be independent of ministries?
Strategic Labor Market Policy
Müntefering wants to cut ALG II for young unemployed people - because if you don't want to do anything about youth unemployment and the lack of training places, then you at least want to reach into the pockets of those who have nothing. It's logical, right? No? Well, it's the SPD's idea of labor market policy ...
But no one knew anything about us
CIA asked Germans for Al-Masri information - the whole edifice of lies is slowly collapsing:
The news magazine "Der Spiegel" reports that there were contacts between US and German security authorities about the case during the abduction of the German Khaled Al Masri by the CIA. According to this, during Al Masri's captivity in Afghanistan in May 2004, two US agents contacted Bavarian and Baden-Württemberg investigators who were monitoring the Islamist scene in Al Masri's hometown of Neu-Ulm.
The Lie of Information Freedom
What the Federal Foreign Office understands by freedom of information:
The applicant requested a decree of the Federal Foreign Office to the visa offices dated November 22 of the previous year with the file reference 508-1-516.20. Such decrees are the daily tools of consular officers in the more than 150 visa offices worldwide, attaching the document to an email should take such an officer a few minutes of work.
And what was the bill for this request? 107.20 euros. For a copy of a standard document. So much for the proportionality of the prices for information access. Exactly what I already expected is happening - the Freedom of Information Act is becoming an absolute farce.
Send Münte into Retirement
He wants to introduce the retirement age of 67 earlier than planned. Sorry, but in times when we have record numbers of unemployed people and those over 45 are considered difficult to place and those over 55 are considered unplaceable, raising the retirement age to 67 is an absolute audacity. Especially when you look at the Hartz IV regulation with the gradual reduction of private savings and securities. Is the late retirement now supposed to guarantee that every normal employee becomes a welfare recipient before retirement?
As long as people in our country cannot actually work until retirement, it is an absolute audacity to extend this time even further.
Betrayed, Monitored, and Sold
Government wants to sell data to the economy - Name, address and date of birth from the identity cards. They must have a screw loose?
Biometric passport insecure
Biometric passport hacked - ok, first only the Dutch one, but:
The new German ePass, which has been issued since November of last year, is also equipped with RFID technology. It is encrypted with 56 bits, which experts also consider to be too little.
56-bit encryption is definitely not enough today - and if some components of the key are then also determined algorithmically from the data of the passport, the disaster is perfect. The result is exactly the opposite of the desired result: the whole technology becomes less secure in the end, because a chain is only as secure as its weakest link.
So far, the weakest link is the human being - a human being has to judge whether a passport belongs to a user. With higher automation and electronic queries, this will shift - the human being will shift responsibility to the machine. People are like that - they trust the computer more than their own eyes. But if the biometric passport is weak, the overall result will be weaker than manual control and human control.
Springer and the Ministerial Permit
Springer was apparently against ministerial approval - but that was not about them:
"There is no room for the application of ministerial approval in the press market for constitutional reasons," it says in the paper. At that time, it was about the acquisition of the Berliner Verlag by the Holtzbrinck Group.
This time, they will certainly be able to explain in detail why everything is completely different now.
We still struggle
implementing equal rights for homosexuals:
Gay civil servants with a registered partnership do not receive a supplement like married couples. This was decided by the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig. The registered partnership is not a marriage, but an independent marital status, the judges decided. The legislator can favor marriage over other communities in terms of remuneration. This does not violate the principle of equality nor the anti-discrimination prohibition under European law. (Case No.: BVerwG 2 C 43.04).
Rarely have I read such a far-fetched justification. We simply define everything as we please, which saves the state money and to hell with the equal rights of homosexuals. Discrimination does not only occur when one group is treated worse than others, but also when one group is treated better than others. It is absurd that the legislator may favor a heterosexual marriage over a homosexual marriage - and exactly the reason why the registered partnership is not a full equivalent to marriage, even if some politicians claim otherwise.