What a Difference !

Check out these two New Year's addresses, of Obama and Merkel, and hear for yourself how he speaks to intelligent citizens and she speaks to babies in a nursery school!

Leadership for Europe!

Finally someone has said what is all too obvious: the apprentices running around with the mantle of government positions casually and stylishly draped over their shoulders are none too sure what they need to do, for Europe or their individual countries. And indeed, the tasks are the same for both; what is good the European Union is all that is good for any individual member country.
Now former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt has spoken up and put his finger in the wound of dilettantism. Here, a few excerpts in English, followed by the links to the original English version of the interview with David Marsh and the German and English translations.

Schmidt: Leadership wanted in Europe

I would say that, in general, Europe lacks leaders. It lacks people in high positions in the national states or in the European institutions with sufficient overview of domestic and international questions and sufficient power of judgment.

[...]

Additionally, the present German government is composed of people who are learning their business on the job. They have no previous experience in world political affairs or in world economic affairs. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is a man whom I wish well and for whom I have great personal respect. He well understands budgetary and taxation problems. But when it comes to international money markets or capital markets or the banking system or the supervision of banks or shadow banks, this is all new to him. The same goes for [Chancellor Angela] Merkel. This is not to say anything negative about Schäuble or anything negative about Merkel, but we need people in high office who understand the economic world of today.

[...]

One very important figure was [former European Commission President] Jacques Delors . He has been replaced by people whose name one doesn’t really know. And the same goes for permanent secretaries and the chairmen of various commissions and for prime ministers and — what is his name — [European Council President Herman] Van Rompuy? And he has a so-called foreign secretary — a British lady, her name is not necessary to know either. The same goes, more or less, for the European Parliament. The only figure who sticks out in the European institutions is [European Central Bank President Jean-Claude] Trichet. I’m not sure how strong he is inside the European Central Bank, But, as far as I can see, he hasn’t made a major mistake so far.

[...]

One of the weakest points in the global economy is that there is no control of the behavior of financial managers. You can divide mankind into three categories. In the first category are normal people like you and me. We may have once stolen an apple from a neighbor’s trees when we were boys, or we may have taken a bar of chocolate from a supermarket without paying for it. But otherwise we are dependable, normal human beings. Then secondly you have a small category of people with a criminal character. And thirdly you have investment bankers. That includes all the dealers and the deal makers. They all sail under different names, but they’re all the same.

Helmut Schmidt im Interview: „Im tiefsten Herzen sind die Bundesbanker Reaktionäre“ (bei Handelsblatt.com am 07.12.2010 veröffentlicht)

Entretien avec Helmut Schmidt, ancien chancelier allemand (1974-1982) : "L'Europe manque de dirigeants"

Was it a wicker chair that leaked?

Germany's make-believe Foreign Minister Westernwave claimed he would pay no attention to the leaks about him being arrogant, aggressive, and incompetent, but ended up so pissed that he fired his office manager for talking to the US ambassador in Berlin, which was the man's job at that time as "party liaison with foreign representatives". Angela Merkel is so very teflon that she brought a cartoon about her being labled the teflon chancellor by wicker leaks and laughed about it with her arrogant vice-chancellor and foreign minister during a meeting of parliament, which she considers disturbing and unimportant, because they debate what she had already decided to have her ministers do.

I've actually not heard anything about any of the German politicians portrayed in those cables between the Berlin embassy and Washington that is not, I believe, entirely true and which I did not already think myself, as well as do most of the people I know.
And about Berlusconi and Sarkozy, well that was also all old news. That Qadaffi let nuclear material lie around in the desert without any supervision also doesn't really suprise me either, and I think it's good that we got to know about it.

Actually I don't really see what everybody (especially Hillary) got all upset about, although the wicker chair should concentrate on the dictators and commando countries around the world some, such as China, Iran, N.Korea, even Russia, because they should really use a lot more exposure. I'd like to know what those jerks say among themselves about officials in the rest of the world, where free speech is an essential right!

Consider this tidbit The New York Times reports from the wicker chair leaks about China:

Cables Discuss Vast Hacking by a China That Fears the Web
As China ratcheted up the pressure on Google to censor its Internet searches last year, the American Embassy sent a secret cable to Washington detailing why top Chinese leaders had become so obsessed with the Internet search company: they were Googling themselves.
The May 18, 2009, cable, titled “Google China Paying Price for Resisting Censorship,” quoted a well-placed source as saying that Li Changchun, a member of China’s top ruling body, the Politburo Standing Committee, and the country’s senior propaganda official, was taken aback to discover that he could conduct Chinese-language searches on Google’s main international Web site. When Mr. Li typed his name into the search engine at google.com, he found “results critical of him.”
That cable from American diplomats was one of many made public by WikiLeaks that portray China’s leadership as nearly obsessed with the threat posed by the Internet to their grip on power — and, the reverse, by the opportunities it offered them, through hacking, to obtain secrets stored in computers of its rivals, especially the United States.
Extensive Chinese hacking operations, including one leveled at Google, are a central theme in the cables. The hacking operations began earlier and were aimed at a wider array of American government and military data than generally known, including attacks on computers of American diplomats preparing positions on a climate change treaty.
One cable, dated early this year, quoted a Chinese person with family connections to the elite as saying that Mr. Li himself directed an attack on Google’s servers in the United States, though that claim has been called into question. In an interview with The New York Times, the person cited in the cable said that Mr. Li personally led a campaign against Google’s operations in China but that to his knowledge had no role in the hacking attack.
The cables catalog the heavy pressure that was placed on Google to comply with local censorship laws, as well as Google’s willingness to comply — up to a point. That coercion began building years before the company finally decided to pull out of China last spring in the wake of the successful hacking attack on its home servers, which yielded Chinese dissidents’ e-mail accounts as well as Google’s proprietary source code.
[...]
The cables also reveal that a surveillance system dubbed Ghostnet that stole information from the computers used by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and South Asian governments and was uncovered in 2009 was linked to a second broad series of break-ins into American government computers code-named Byzantine Hades. Government investigators were able to make a “tenuous connection” between those break-ins and the People’s Liberation Army.
The documents also reveal that in 2008 German intelligence briefed American officials on similar attacks beginning in 2006 against the German government, including military, economic, science and technology, commercial, diplomatic, and research and development targets. The Germans described the attacks as preceding events like the German government’s meetings with the Chinese government.

Quite honestly, I'm glad to know, and to know that the whole world (with the exception of those living in China) knows about the disgusting trampling on free information and opinion that China perpetrates!

Let's here the shenanigans of Putin's new Russian secret police as well.

Keep that wicker chair rocking, and just remember that people have always some day found out when you say something "bad" even if true about someone else!

And then enjoy this great song and dance number cartoon by Mark Fiore about the loss of diplomatic secrecy.

Have fun, and don't forget to watch those gaps in your wicker chair.

Notwendige Wiederholung // Necessary Repetition

Aus der aktuellen Debatte leite ich die Notwendigkeit ab, einen alten Aufsatz hier wieder zu verlinken. Es geht um die "Leitkultur", und sie tut mir auch sehr leid.

Übrigens tut es der Zeit auch leid, dass dieser Begriff wieder ausgegraben wurde!

Good News for Germany = Bad News for the Tigerente!

The Button Merkel and the Westernwave have finally, with their impossibly incompetent and socially cold policies, moved their parties down into the basement of public opinion as the German electorate awakens to the fact that neoliberal economics may help bankers and the rich, but not the population in general or the country as a whole. The shift in the polls holds out great hope, as state elections loom next year!

Sonntagsfrage ‹ Bundesweit ‹ Umfragen & Analysen ‹ Infratest dimap
05.08.10
Union: 31%
SPD: 31%
FDP: 5%
Linke: 10%
Grüne: 17%
Sonstige: 6%

Which would provide a parliamentary majority for SPD-Green and perhaps nudge Germany into the Twenty-First Century again!

Tigerente Plummets !

Merkel und Westerwelle stürzen ab - ZDF.de

Now that's good news, fits with the WM loss today somehow, which also doesn't allow the Chief Button Popper and Westernwave to hope for a distracted population. Now lets move on to kicking out all their plans if not all their ministers and try to move this country forward again, with concern for the less well off and a demand for responsibility from the well-to-do and the financial institutions so cynically grinning through the crisis!

Video report on same in this link...

Schwarzgeldpartei will scharze Kasse

Ist es überraschend, daß die Partei der schwarzen Kohlgelder und des kochenden Parteibilanzfälschers nun eine schwarze Kasse aufmachen möchten, um die Kredite zu verstecken, die durch die Kreditbremse nicht erlaubt sind im "normalen" Haushalt? Die Kredibremse kam durch eine von genau dieser Partei befürwortete Verfassungsänderung zustande. Nur hat ihre zukünftige gelbe Koalitionspartnerin am Anfang dieses Jahres vor genau solchen Schattenhaushalten vehement ausgeprochen, wollte auch die Bremse, um neue Verschuldung des Staates zu verhindern. Leider sind die beiden von den wenigen Wählern gewählt worden und damit gezwungen, Steuersenkungen zu schenken. Da sie offenbar selbst nicht so erst glaubten an ihren Sieg, hatten sie scheinbar nie damit gerechnet, Steuersenkungen realisieren zu müssen. Und da ist das neue Problem: Keine Steuersenkungen auf Pump lautete noch ein Wahlversprechen. Wie bringt nun Schwarz-Gelb diese beiden sich widersprechenden Versprechungen in Einklang? Sie möchten einfach die Pumpe begraben, verstecken, verschatten.
Und diese Koalition soll sichern, daß die "Wirtschaft" berg auf geht?

Kritik am geplanten Schattenhaushalt tagesschau.de:

"Größter Haushaltsbetrug der Geschichte"
Der von Union und FDP geplante Schattenhaushalt für das Milliardendefizit der Sozialversicherungen stößt in der Opposition sowie bei Wirtschaftsfachleuten auf massive Kritik. Der Präsident des Deutschen Instituts für Wirtschaftsforschung, Klaus Zimmermann, bezeichnete den geplanten Schattenhaushalt als schwarze Kasse. "Damit stellt sich die Koalition
einen Blankoscheck für haushaltspolitisches Fehlverhalten in den nächsten Jahren aus"', sagte er der "Süddeutschen Zeitung". [...]
Berlins parteiloser Finanzsenator Ulrich Nußbaum sprach von "Bilanzfälschung" und fügte hinzu: "Wenn ich in meinem Unternehmen auf diese Weise bilanzieren würde, wäre ich wegen Konkursverschleppung dran." Der Grünen-Haushaltsexperte Alexander Bonde sagte der "SZ": "Das ist der größte haushaltspolitische Betrug in der deutschen Geschichte."

Aber von diesen Rechnern und "Immer-Mehr-Fundamentalisten" hätte ich eh nichts anderes erwartet.

End of a House Slave ?

Just a suggestion: Perhaps we have witnessed, in recent days, a house slave finally managing to escape from the playpen of his master, admitting all he did wrong by ever letting himself be used there, and trying to make up for some horrible actions he took, as at the UN with that fake evidence about Iraq he presented. (I'm talking about Colin P, of course.) Perhaps he's attempting to free himself totally from the shackles of the abusers and lend support to one pointing to the light.
(A question: Is there any chance the Oreo-Cookie-Condy can also make a break from her self-imposed imprisonment? Probably not, since she even considers the Equal Opportunity laws, which gave her one, are unfair. She's got an awful lot to learn.)

Meanwhile, here, the Chairman of the Deutsche Bank announced he would be ashamed to accept any guarantees or equity funds from the state rescue package he helped the German government fashion to rescue the financial sector he and his cronies had a part in steering into the oblivion of trashy investments based on less than a hope and a prayer. He also generally offered to "forego" his bonus payments this year, as if he or any banker anywhere deserved any.
Angie popped a few buttons upon hearing this, and the Finance Minister reminded Mr. Ackermann that he had been involved in the whole thing from the word go and called his remarks out of place.

Whatever happened to hairshirts for penitents? What ever happened to penitence? or shame? or simple decency? What ever happened to the ability to think straight? or to think at all?

Dealing With Disruption

You can even get protesters at at speech to calm down and wait for the question and answer session following, give them a chance to speak, and address their concerns.

Or you can follow the recent German political model of trying to silence any and all who don't agree with you (even inside your own party), as the SPD is trying to do by seeking the expulsion of the former Minister of Economics, a 40-year member of the SPD, for his, admittedly unhappy, criticism of the Hessian SPD candidate in that state's election early this year. The problem is his new position as lobbyist for nuclear energy concerns. But try to discuss intelligently, and you'll only get snide remarks from the partner party in the coalition, the CDU. Whining Pohfalla will claim success as his party now has more members than the SPD, but not resulting from NEW members, but from fewer people quitting his party than the other. Proud pride!

And Angie just keeps right on doing and saying as little as possible, claiming to be the environmental Chancellor while coming up with CO2 emission formulas for the EU that provide heavier German auto models with a better environmental rating than lighter more fuel-efficient models from elsewhere. See the report from Frontal21 last Tuesday! And even better, this concluding satire TOLL! in which the chancellorette says, "Something might happen!"

Home Again

1. Weather cooler and rainier than what we left behind in Ireland, but they're threatening with 30°+ again by the weekend.

2. Schools are out for summer holidays, so the city is calmer and has less traffic than usual.

3. The Berlin mom is packing for her rehab of 3 weeks beginning tomorrow and let us take her out to lunch today.

4. Obama is going to deliver his European speech here at the Siegessäule, a very fitting location for as many as possible to get to see him. But bushbaby-sliming Angie, who first criticized the idea of him speaking at the Brandenburg Gate, now is popping buttons and claiming this to be a politically incorrect location as it stands for Prussian victory over France in 1871 (as if she'd have preferred a victory of the Communards!), finally making clear to the last idiot in town that she's simply playpenally averse to Obama speaking anywhere and would prefer a mccanny playpen substitute if she can't stay stuffed up the back end of a bushbaby.

5. We're looking forward to seeing and hearing him speak here, a wonderful chance for Europe to see there's a good America to root for and for expat Americans to see the candidate of change up close.

6. We still have a few more days before the daily trot reconvenes.

7. The Siegessäule is by now primarily and simply a symbol of the wonderful city of Berlin.

CDU-Candidate in Hessia Gets the Hard Punishment He Sought for Others

Two articles with appropriate assessments of the convicted party balance sheet fraudster Koch's loss in yesterday's election in Hessia, both from

taz.de :

Amtliches Ergebnis in Hessen: Roland Koch droht die Abschiebung

Roland Koch droht die Abschiebung
Der CDU-Ministerpräsident kann in Hessen nur noch in einer Großen Koalition weiterregieren. Doch die ist unwahrschienlich. SPD-Chefin Ypsilanti will lieber eine Ampelkoalition.

Cohn-Bendit für Minderheitsregierung

Nur Rot-Grün verhindert Lähmung
Der Grüne Fraktionschef im Europaparlament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, plädiert für eine rot-grüne Minderheitsregierung in Hessen als Weg aus dem Patt. Die müsste sich von den Linken tolerieren lassen.

After his latest gambit of playing the law-and-order trump card and blaming crime on foreign kids, while his own administration had cut funding for police, district attorneys, and judges in his state while also reducing programs for integration, education, and social work, this Minister President had to eat some crow, finally. Already, in the CDU slush fund scandals, the courts had deemed him indeed guilty of falsifying his party's books with his signature verifying fraudulent donations and money laundering through third countries, though it was not punishable, as fraud in political party books at that time was not a crime! Unethical it was, though, as was his entire campaign this time round.
Now he and buttoned up Chancellor Merkel are claiming he should form the next government there anyway, because everything he did, of course, was, in their opinion, right, though he has no chance of assembling a coalition majority and his party (and hers) was the major loser in the election, despite squeaking to first place with 36.8% of the votes ahead of the SPD with 36.7%.
Cohn-Bendit's proposal of a minority government with toleration by the Linke may be the only possibility open, if the FDP, till now in the CDU swindler's pocket, continues to resist a three-party coalition with Greens and SPD.

The results were as follows, in percent, 2003 in parenthesis, change afterwards:
CDU 36,8 (48,8) -12,0
SPD 36,7 (29,1) + 7,6
Grüne 7,5 (10,1) - 2,6
FDP 9,4 ( 7,9) + 1,5
Die Linke 5,1 ( --) + 5,1

Seats in the parliament in Hessia will now be divided up as follows:
CDU 42
SPD 42
Grüne 9
FDP 11
Linke 6
110 seats in total, for a majority, a coalition needs 56 seats.

We may soon see some of Merkel's buttons pop soon!