This. No other comment needed, except that you need to understand German, or that you’ll have to use your favourite translation engine for it.
German politicians make a bad (and sad) joke about our country
Look at this for example. One might wonder who the hell is voting for people like Söder and the likes, and Merz isn’t any better. Maybe we should start and forbid lobbyists in Brussels, and let those backwards-oriented and “yesterday was better” crowd go wherever they want, but not rule this country? Just a thought…
And it’s about high time to tax the rich, instead of further letting them grab everything they want from the poor. My 2 (Euro-) Cents on European politics…
About digital sovereignty
Yes – this could become really important rather sooner than later. Read about it in German and/or in English. And even if that sounds like reinventing the wheel – we might have no other choice…
See also this – sadly, this is available in German only. But it seems that it’s already happening…
I agree. A nightmare, and genocide indeed…
This has nothing to do with defense anymore – we should be ashamed that we don’t speak out against it far louder…
An update, from 15 days later – and almost too late… now at least *some* sane countreis dare to say anything against it.
Bunch of fools…
… who don’t even see the risks they cause, and who are constantly sawing the branch they’re sitting upon, as we say in German…
Reminds me of a song of which Mitchie said it was from Homer Simpson. Something like “Look at all these idiots – what a bunch of morons!” 🙁
Edit: found it:
So it was Mr. Burns who was singing the Blues about an office full of morons, and a planet full of fools. I guess that’s us all, aren’t we?
MAGA, as I read somewhere, means:
2025
A new year has started, but there isn’t that much to report, or so I think.
This is the year that Microsoft will stop supporting their operating system Windows 10, so everyone including the ARD and the CCC are recommending to upgrade rather sooner than later, and if Microsoft thinks that your machine isn’t fit for Windows 11, try Linux instead. I still remember that old joke where someone wrote: “The box said to install Windows 7 or better – so I installed Linux” 😉
Yesterday one year ago I bought a fitness tracker, and started to investigate in free software for it, using Gadgetbridge since January 10th, 2024. You can search this page for the term “Xiaomi” in case you’re interested. The main thing for me is the step counting, and that my data isn’t saved in some 3rd party cloud, neither in China nor in the USA. Anyway, since last year I have now walked over 4.2 million steps, so that’s a bit more than 10,000 steps a day, and I’m planning to continue this. With a step length of about 75cm, that would sum up to over 3,100km so far, so I’d say that I’d have covered Europe by now… and maybe reach my father-in-law’s after some 3 years or so 😉
What else is new? Oh, I volunteered to assist with the upcoming elections here in Germany. In case you’re not sure whom to vote for, from 6th of February you could consult the “Wahl-O-Mat” again. What would also help to reach informed decisions is to stop living in your “filter bubble“, or “Filterblase” like we say here in Germany. So it could help to stop using search engines which belong to giant companies, and also to avoid (a-) social media sites and services which belong to tech billionaires, like my friend Peter just did – bravo to him!
So – let’s hope that this year will be better than the last one, and that we can continue using more and more renewable energy; Germany is on a good way here even if we broke the 1.5° barrier already. So don’t throw away your old PCs which I mentioned above, and also your old mobile phones – use alternative operating systems instead, and save money and toxic waste. I wish us all a good new year 2025.
And like always, thanks for reading.
In German /Auf Deutsch: Denk ich an Deutschland…
“Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht”
Heinrich Heine, Nachtgedanken, 1844
Was Heinrich Heine von 180 Jahren schrieb fällt mir ein wenn ich Nachrichten und Umfragen wie diese sehe…
Edit: … und ja, natürlich weiß ich daß er das vom Exil in Paris aus schrieb, und daß er vor Allem seine Mutter vermißte die er nicht sehen konnte. Heine meinte das also weniger politisch, auch wenn man zwischen den Zeilen einige Hinweise auf seine eher unfreiwillige Ausreise bekam – Deutschland mochte ihn zu dieser Zeit nicht.
Egal; an diese Zeilen denk ich oft wenn ich an Deutschland denke… auch wenn meine Gründe andere sind als die von Heinrich Heine. Einen frohen vierten Advent wünsch ich Allen die das feiern.
Interesting – comments from the outside on the German situation
See/read them here…
In German / Auf Deutsch: Lesenswert…
… ist der Artikel “Perle Europas” von Elena Wolf in der Stuttgarter Kontext: Wochenzeitung. Allein schon wegen des “Kasperletheaters”. Aber bitte trotzdem nicht ultra-rechts wählen. Nicht mal schwarz – die haben die ganze Misere ja erst verbrochen die “die Ampel” jetzt nicht mehr viel Zeit hat noch ausbaden zu müssen…
Und wie immer: danke für’s Lesen. Und die kontextwochenzeitung ist einen Bookmark wert, trotz des Stuttgarter Lokalkolorits. Immerhin werdet Ihr nicht von Trackern verfolgt…