Majority in NRW against new state treaty for youth protection on the internet - Computer. The attempt by the Union to portray this as an embarrassment for Red/Green is quite amusing. I mean, how stupid do these prolethicians in Düsseldorf actually think the voter is? The waffling of Red/Green is indeed embarrassing - especially with the Greens, after their bold statements, one could only have accepted a rejection - but the ridiculousness of the Greens is something the Union can hardly claim as a success, the Greens manage that quite well on their own. Good that this dreadful contract has been postponed for now (whoever believes the topic is now settled for good is also putting on their pants with pliers), but it is hardly a merit of any of the parties. Everyone has made a fool of themselves, even the Left (with their approval in Berlin).
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SPD says no to CDU in NRW: The real crazies - taz.de - the political posturing and stupid remarks from politicians are really getting on my nerves. All talk, no action, none of them are interested in a real solution. And so we have to continue putting up with this unbearable Rüttgers, because the SPD and the Greens consider stupid principle games against the Left more important than replacing the Union in the state government. Sure, the Left are chaotic - the Greens were too when they started out. And? Is a Rüttgers in office any better?
NRW has voted - State Election 2010 - so if you want to make me happy in Düsseldorf: whether red-green or red-red-green, just make sure that Rüttgers' face appears in the news only with the caption "former Prime Minister of NRW," okay? Leave any black-green games to others and grand coalitions are just totally out of fashion at the moment.
CDU comes under pressure due to "voter initiative" - oh those lovely "independent" voter initiatives that keep popping up. Or the completely "independent" initiatives against our social system - always very amusing, always very deceitful. It would be nice if this were appropriately acknowledged in the election in NRW - with a drastic loss of votes for the Union. If the other parties don't mess up too badly now, they should be able to exploit this for the election campaign. However, if I look at the clowns of the NRW SPD, I have my doubts whether they can pull something off ...
Claude Monet's Masterpieces in Wuppertal - I really wouldn't have thought that I would put Wuppertal on my must-see list for the next few months. But with an exhibition like this, it's probably unavoidable. Respect!
Nokia: Hinweise auf Verstoß gegen Auflagen - can someone please explain to me in a coherent way why 60 million in subsidies were paid and a violation of the conditions is only noticed when the whole place causes such a massive stir that even the dumbest prolethician can no longer look the other way? I mean, does no one really check when only a measly 60 million is at stake, or are they just completely stupid in Düsseldorf? 200 to 400 missing jobs should surely be noticed earlier (and anyway, why don't they know how many jobs are actually missing? Should I report my tax debt next time with "oh, around 100-200 euros"?)
Tough stance against drug offenders - naturally only against "hard" drugs. Such as hashish, for example. Because that is much worse and more serious than alcohol, which teenagers can already buy from the age of 16 in the form of beer. Because nobody becomes addicted to beer and no harm comes to society and the young people will cope with it very easily. But hashish, yes, that is much worse. The loss of reality among the prolethicians is really shocking ...
Giant hogweed is being combated - "Giant hogweed, also known as Hercules' club, is poisonous and can cause second-degree burns. That's why road maintenance workers in NRW will be clearing the slopes of this plant in the coming weeks." - one could wonderfully make a bad science fiction out of this news ...
Big Brother in the private computer - Orwell is so outdated ...
Fewer rights for works councils in the public sector - Co-determination? Annoying. Get rid of it.
LEG wird privatisiert - which will bring in 2.5 billion once, which politicians will quickly squander. But the lost control, the sold-out foothold in the real estate market, through which the state could still intervene - that's gone for good. Stupid.
Sale of NRW University Hospitals? - oh yes, privatization. Alleged panacea of our time. In reality, just as much quackery as snake oil.
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.
Protesters ride down ...
... will soon be back in NRW again. Although in 2003 all units were abolished due to the far too high costs.
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.
"Brother Johannes" has passed away
Even though I certainly did not always agree with his opinions and stance, with the death of Johannes Rau a significant part of NRW political history comes to an end.
After all, the man shaped a large part of my conscious engagement with politics - most of that time as the Minister President of NRW. He will definitely be missed - even if he was sometimes a rather conservative hardliner, and his sermons were annoying on more than one occasion. Somehow, he still belonged to NRW.
Stigmatization of adolescents already in the report cards
Great, NRW is bringing back headnotes:
According to the plans of the North Rhine-Westphalian state government, teachers should evaluate the "work and social behavior" of students, and this should be mandatory for all classes up to and including the tenth grade. Points such as "willingness to learn and perform" and "readiness to take responsibility and independence" should be graded with classic school grades from "very good" to "insufficient." However, characteristics such as "endurance and resilience" and "cooperativeness and team spirit" should also be mentioned in the report card, as well as special school and extracurricular commitment such as voluntary work in youth groups.
So that students are as well-behaved as possible in school. You engage politically, but unfortunately in a different direction than your teachers? Doesn't matter, you'll just get a bad grade in social behavior. What, you won't get a job later because no one wants you? Doesn't matter, there are already hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people, you can just throw you in there. You don't want to engage in church groups or similar because all these groups in your town are just cross fanatics anyway? Doesn't matter, bad grades in extracurricular commitment certainly won't be a problem in job hunting. What, you have problems with your classmates and are excluded by them, for example because they don't like your skin color or nose shape? You're just not cooperative enough and not a team player.
There are good reasons why these dreadful headnotes have been abolished. Social behavior is simply not gradable - even less so than knowledge or performance (here, the concentration on a few key moments in the school year is already a problem - real knowledge is not evaluated, but performance at the time of the exams).
But of course, they are incredibly practical if you want to breed compliant yes-men. "Child, just don't cause any trouble at school, the grade for social behavior can decide your later job" - I can already hear some parents "straightening out" their children. Left-wing youth group? No way, job-threatening. Slip-ups in life? Catastrophe, can only be smoothed out with years of brown-nosing the teacher.
Oh yes, we are getting the best school system in Germany in NRW. The question is just for whom the school system should be the best - probably not for the students.
Speculation about new nuclear power plants in NRW
News from the energy policy chicken coop - Nuclear power yes, but not in NRW. Or maybe yes. In any case, the decision of the federal government applies. But maybe not. And anyway - let's swap nuclear power plants for fuel cells. Or maybe the other way around? Doesn't matter, let's just keep talking, maybe no one will notice that we have no idea.
Concentrated incompetence. Don't worry, they will surely ruin NRW. It would be a laugh if we couldn't completely bankrupt ourselves among the federal states.
Dismantling of NRW progresses
Dispute over cuts in the scientific sector:
On Thursday (22.12.05), SPD parliamentary group leader Hannelore Kraft criticizes that the state subsidies for the science center are to be reduced and will be reduced to zero within four to five years starting in 2006. The consequence would be the complete end for these institutes, as they need state funding to be able to raise third-party funds in the first place. Kraft considers this development "fatal". Contrary to the announcements, the black-yellow coalition is saving on important future areas.
Did anyone really expect anything different? The black-yellow government is simply consistently continuing what the SPD started before - the run-down of NRW. Without rhyme or reason, things are being done wildly, regardless of the cost. The main thing is to be in power and be able to do a lot of damage. In a few years, others will be in power anyway, so why should Prolethikers care about the future? It's only about securing a good position in the economy for the time after the government ...
Did RWE know about defects in power pylons? - since the Spiegel article will soon disappear behind the paywall, here are the most important facts in the Tagesschau report.
The Failure of RWE
In times of crisis, you can fully rely on the fact that these overpriced energy suppliers can only do one thing: rip people off and exploit monopolies wherever they can. From the news:
Meanwhile, RWE has begun to assess and partially repair the damage. However, the power is expected to remain out in Steinfurt, Laer, Metelen, Horstmar, and Ochtrup until Monday.
How generous of them to finally start assessing the damage. How about at least restoring power to communication facilities? The phone service to Nordwalde still doesn't work - this is not just a total failure of Deutsche Telekom (which also has its share of blame), but also of the power suppliers. And how can it be that the power suppliers are unable to restore power supply in the district town? These are conditions like in the USA - only here no tornado has passed through, but just a slightly heavier snowfall.
Why these idiots and failures constantly think they need to raise prices when they can't even maintain something as basic as power operations, I just don't understand. The whole thing is an absolute failure and a total disgrace for RWE.
There is a hole in the canal
Here's the translated Markdown body:
Expressed differently: we have the canal empty:
However, according to WDR information, the barrier in Lüdinghausen might be about to break. Therefore, as a precaution, a state of emergency was declared for the lower reaches of the Lippe up to Ahsen.
It's strange to imagine that the canal now has a full closure at two points ...
Driving makes you stupid
Cycling makes you impotent, but driving makes you stupid: drivers in a traffic jam have repeatedly turned around on the highway on the Autobahn:
For the second time in a few days, drivers in NRW have turned around on the highway. Although Interior Minister Ingo Wolf (FDP) had announced an increased release of the emergency lanes, this may only be ordered by the police.
Of course, for drivers in NRW, this immediately means the green light for a brainless move. The only question is when the turnaround idiots will meet the idiots who consider an emergency lane as a race track to the front of the traffic jam ...
Lügen-Linssen and the Finances
Well, this is how Linssen envisions the austerity measures - with a bunch of new positions, including speechwriters. Because we certainly need those urgently in NRW, so that the black-yellow embarrassment can be talked away.
Because it's not about the election promises at all - it's only about gaining power and holding onto it, and then embezzling as much as possible as quickly as possible.
First Fallout from Black-Yellow
Black-Yellow on the ideological crusade against wind energy:
The Federal Ministry for the Environment sees the initiative of the state government as a "frontal challenge" to wind energy. "This means that no more wind turbines may be built in NRW," a ministry spokesman told wdr.de on Tuesday. If the example of North Rhine-Westphalia were to be followed, Germany's climate protection targets would no longer be achievable. The CDU and FDP are fighting "for ideological reasons" against wind energy.
Well, of course, the Union has to diligently crawl up the energy monopolists' asses, so the fluttering of the wind rotors is a nuisance ...
Public Sector Non-Performance
Imagine an agency of the state government tasked with surveying the entire country. A sensible idea, after all, one must know where there is space and where there isn't, where rivers, houses, roads, railways, and plots of land are, and all the other things that are around.
Imagine further that this agency is naturally funded by tax money - sensible, since it is a service to society. The survey technicians working there are paid from the public purse and do what they do best - survey the area.
Imagine further that these data are also used for maps for private individuals. Commendable - even if the maps are significantly more expensive at almost 8 euros than other maps, they are based on much more precise data and are beautifully detailed at 1:25,000 - ideal as hiking maps.
Imagine further that this agency also operates an online service where you can zoom in on all maps - down to the scale of 1:1,000. Very nice, to take a closer look at the area in detail. Unfortunately, the window is very small and thus the overview is not really very good. In return, you can mix in aerial images.
Imagine further that this agency also provides the map data in digital form - with software only for Windows. That's bad. That's rarely stupid - Java has been around for 15 years, should also be known in such offices and agencies. Moreover, the DVD with its almost 50 euros is not exactly cheap (or rather, the 1:50,000 is not - the 1:25,000 are two DVDs, no idea about the price - probably double). And did I mention that they were so stupid to make it only for Windows?
Now imagine that the data on the Windows DVD are indeed based on a standard format (GeoTIFF - basically map material as TIFF with additional geo-data for the precise determination of the position of the graphic tiles). But on the Windows DVD, these data are encrypted - to prevent any user of a non-publicly-officially-approved operating system from accessing them. That's shit.
Now imagine that upon inquiry, this office informs you that of course you can also get the data in the standard format - for a measly 3 euros per square kilometer of map coverage. That is an audacity. If you imagine all that together, then you have the Landesvermessungsamt Nordrhein-Westfalen.
What do I pay my taxes for again? So that I can be screwed twice?
Environmental Clearance Sale in D-Village
It was to be expected, the state government presents environmental policy goals - and what does that bring:
Environmental protection will also have "high priority" in the new NRW state government - promises Environment Minister Eckhard Uhlenberg. But he wants to reduce the influence of nature conservation associations.
And then there are various other niceties, in principle a dismantling of what has always distinguished NRW's environmental policy from the rather weak stance of the federal government (and probably a merit of Mrs. Höhn - not that anyone believes the SPD in NRW has been particularly environmentally conscious).
Cultureless State Parliament?
Culture Committee in the State Parliament abolished?:
If this were the case, cultural policy in NRW would only be in the hands of the state government, criticizes the German Cultural Council. Because: The committees in the state parliament have the task of parliamentary accompanying and controlling the work of the government. Thus, cultural policy is actually democratically legitimized in the cultural committee, its abolition would cause considerable damage to this legitimacy, according to the Cultural Council.
Well, with such culturally barren barbarians in the state government, it is by no means surprising that culture no longer gets an appropriate place ...
Tuition Fees in NRW
Since summer 2006:
It was a rather uncontroversial meeting two weeks ago: In just three hours, the major topic of "education" was dealt with. Result of the harmonious coalition round of CDU and FDP: The "fastest possible" introduction of tuition fees, possibly as early as summer 2006.
Ripping off can be done very quickly, and freeing up studies from the bothersome working-class children for the sons and daughters of citizens again goes even faster for bourgeois parties. Although it is an absolute audacity in NRW with its extremely high proportion of workers, but what does that matter to Zerrüttgers and his ilk. They will ruin the country faster than the SPD ever could have ...