Oh the stupidity

I’m going to stick to the minarets in Switzerland for a while.

One of the main arguments from the people who are defending the block on building minarets is:

Try to build a church in Iran and see how easy that is.

Gaaah! it makes me so furious because it is such a childish and stupid response.

First of all we all can assume that it’s no fun to move from your country to a whole new one. To leave your whole culture behind and try to start life somewhere else. So let’s just assume that the people moving from countries like Iran and other are moving because they aren’t that content with sharia laws, no freedom of speech and no freedom of religion or they are being persecuted for who or what they are or what they’ve said or thought. At least I think, that the people who actually have left countries where you are restricted to some religious believes and have moved to Europe are the ones who aren’t quite content with the fact that you aren’t able to build churches in their old country.

And second: Aren’t we in Europe trying to be the guiding light? In Germany the swiss are getting a lot of happy responses. At least here in southern Germany and Germany is a part of the EU. Here we are trying to set directions for countries like Turkey, to make them adapt to us so they also can join the EU. We are saying, to join the EU you have to drop the death penalty, and so on and so forth, and you have to enforce the fact that you have religious freedom in your country. You can’t go on persecuting people of other believes, you have to be open to build the buildings of other religions.

This is similar to a school yard, where a kid bullies another, the teacher asks him why and he says, well I’ve seen Calvin doing it.

Let’s not go there people.

Let’s just suppress all the stupid forces in our societies.

A cheap one

Come to think of the minarets in Switzerland.

Wasn’t Hitler democratically* elected too?

Perhaps sometimes the people aren’t the smartest ones.

(* might have been some foul play behind it also, I don’t know – I wasn’t there)

the meat scandals

I guess every european country has had one – a meat scandal. My guess would be that one investigating tv show came up with the idea to check the quality of the meat in the supermarkets and then it spread to all other countries after that.

In Sweden it was the public service show “uppdrag granskning” who investigated a couple of supermarkets and found proof that a number of the supermarkets repacked meat. When the expire date was over they just repacked the meat. When it comes to minced meat they just grind (?) it again and repack it. In Germany I just saw a piece in the show extra in the channel rtl where they rapported about the fact that they discovered the meat scandal a couple of years ago by putting pieces of spaghetti in meat that would expire the next day and then they went to the supermarket the day after and checked the new packages of meat – with new expire dates – and found the spaghetti pieces in the meat again!

ergo: the meat has just been repacked or relabled.

No good. No good.

And everyone is very appalled and it’s called a scandal and yadayada.

Still – from what I’ve heard – no one has gotten sick from eating this meat.

So isn’t it all a tiny, tiny bit stupid?

I, for one feel a bit patronized when there are rules either set from the supermarket or from the eu or the health department, that they can’t even put the meat or milk or cheese with an expired date on the shelf – in Sweden it’s not called expired – it’s called best before. The meat is best before this date. But it’s not non edible. Why can’t they just lower the price, say, if we get rid of it then we’ll be happy, then at home you can decide on your own if it’s edible or not. The milk is not bad before it smells bad. Usually that is about four days after the date shown on the package – especially if it’s not opened yet. Meat you can still eat if the color is ok and it still smells fine. Still you don’t find any food in the supermarket where the best before date has passed.

So where do all these food go?

I think it’s just thrown away. I think it’s just adding to the food mountains in the west world. We throw away huge amounts of edible food every day.

So isn’t it all a tiny, tiny bit stupid?

When I was a kid it was still ok to sell food that was expired. My father came home every second day with old milk, old salami, old bread and told us, eat, it was cheap but it will only stay good as long as it haven’t turned bad. So I got an expert on determining what was good and what was bad. Newsflash! if you buy minced meat that has expired by a day but still looks and smells ok and you don’t want to eat it like the same day or the next day – freeze it and you can use it next week.

Now I’m a grown up and I think the regulations should treat me like one too. It’s important to say, perhaps the baking soda will loose some of it’s power after this date or perhaps the milk won’t taste just as fresh as the new new one after it’s “expiration date” but it isn’t bad yet, for a discount you can buy it, you just won’t be able to keep it at home as many days as otherwise and then when it smells bad you have to throw it away.

I don’t support the fact that the supermarkets fooled us buyers. I don’t think that anyone should trick anyone ever. But I can see flaws in the system and the regulations and see why it came to the tricking.

Funny, Funny

In Germany they want to set German as the official language and in Europe they want to set English as the official European language.  So the European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

Westerwelle and the illiberal liberals

After the conservatives (CDU) and the liberals(FDP) ruled Germany for 16 years, Helmut Kohl (CDU) lost the majority in 1998. Since then the CDU and the FDP tried to form a so called middle class coalition again. Finally after 11 years the German electorate voted in favour of a liberal-conservative majority in the German parliament.

Since 1982 the FDP ran for mainly all elections with a classical neoliberal program which included mainly positions like a transformation of the German welfare system and the German tax system as well as a strong believe in the free market and a deep distrust in centralized decisions. Sentences which the chairman of the liberal party Guido Westerwelle repeated ad nauseam for almost 11 years were: „Work must be worthwhile again“. As well as the sentence „Someone who works must have more money than someone who doesn’t work“. The liberal party wants to achieve this goal by “a fairer, easier and lower tax system“ and „more money after-tax for employees and entrepreneurs“. Westerwelle incarnates the typical german liberal party member. On the schoolyard he probably stood around with his orderly polo shirt and went to the most snobbish discos, ordered there a bottle of vodka while having a strong averseness to the left and the former 1968 movement . His dislike for the hippies is one of the reasons why he so strongly excludes a coalition with the German left until today, even though they initiated more market-orientated reforms than the conservative-liberal coalition during Helmut Kohl’s reign. Although the FDP and the lefties share a lot of common political topics like disarmament, the abolishment of compulsory military service, to avoid sleepwalking into being a surveillance state, a cooperative international policy and the wish of a modern, tolerant and pro immigration society they strongly refuse a coalition with the left since 1982 until today.

But what reforms can the FDP achieve with the CDU and what will be the agenda of the new coalition? The simple answer is that no one knows, especially not the conservatives, what will happen in the next four years and what the exact plans or agenda of the new coalition will look like. The CDU stands once again, after four years of reign, for what they always did when it comes to difficult decision-making or modern political approaches. They afraid to address the most important problems and of change. But above all the conservatives are afraid of loosing elections in the German federal states and thereby the majority in the second chamber to the left and through that also the possibility to shape politics in the Bundestag.

For sure the german tax system will be  reformed a bit eventually, the operating time of some nuclear power stations will be prolonged for some years, the FDP will reach some achievements in terms of civil rights. But more tough decisions have to be made in the next four years because Germany has to save money due to the financial situation and has to accomplish reforms of the welfare state because the demographic situation is changing dramatically. Moreover a liberal soul has to fear that the German liberals will support the conservatives in some of their scary claims like recognizing the German language in the german constitution, further subsidies for farmers or a conservative foreign policy. Furthermore it will be very dificult for the liberals to achieve the previous mentioned political positions which they share with the left.

It was Gerhard Schröder who had the courage do undertake the most significant pro market  and social reforms  and not the conservative party. The in my opinion often irrational refusal for other coalition options than the one with the conservatives and the averseness to the alternative scene and the so called left, which Westerwelle shares with most of the conservative thinking FDP voters, is attributed to cultural dislike of the left.  The exclusion of the liberals for other political collaboration than the one with the conservatives brings the FDP in a weak negotiating position in the coalition for the next four years. The liberals will have a hard time to achieve any liberal goals aside from tax reforms with the conservatives.  If they don’t achieve more profound reforms than Schröder did with the social democrats and the greens, the liberals made fools out themselves with the constant criticism of the left and their refusal to form other coalitions in the last 11 or even 26 years. In this case the liberals would be uncovered as ideologues who didn’t want to enter a coalition since 1982 with the left not due to political differences but because of their dislike of the hippies and the protests of 1968.

In my opinion this narrow minded position of the FDP and most of their party members is truly illiberal for liberals.

Germany – The country where you’re still a child

I just got my student “allowance”. In Sweden we have a system called csn (centrala studiestödsnämnden) that lends you money and is handling the money contributions from the state while you’re a student. To be able to get money you have to prove that you’re a full-time student and that you’re not earning too much money on the side. Otherwise there’s no issue. They just hand over the money and you can party, buy literature and eat and breathe for the whole month. The only catch is that about 2/3 of the money is a loan and has to be payed back. This has resulted in me having about 35 000 euros that I have to ay back. Oups! but that’s the price for education , isn’t it.

Still I prefer owing the state (csn is ruled by the government – evil evil) to the option I would have in Germany. As I understand it, please correct me if I’m wrong, as long as you’re parents aren’t living in the gutter, being, well lower middle class at least (when this is the case you can have BAföG – like german csn, but just for some people), you’re not entitled to any contributions from the German government. Otherwise your parents are supposed to finance your studies and they get tax cuts in return. Sorry, there is money from the state but it’s like contributions from the state for children – Kindergeld, that go to the parents! until you’re like 26 years old but that money aren’t enough to pay the rent. After that I guess you’re cut. So you have to depend on your parents the whole time. You can also get a bank loan for the time you’re studying

The effect of this, that I can see around me, is that everyone is working while studying – when you’re 25 you don’t want to get money from your parents, it’s embarrassing. But working while studying has effects on your studies, it’s just hard to keep up the pace and your studies are bound to take a year or two longer. Studying longer means more tuitions (at LMU where I’m studying it costs 1200 euros per year). And considering that one of the reasons for even having tuitions mostly is to shorten the studies and make the students study faster to go out and be paying citizens, it’s all a blur for me.

So let’s conclude what I just said. In Germany you’re allowed to quit  school ≈15, you can buy and drink beer at 16, have sex with older people when 16 or 18. You can vote, drive,  drink stronger alcohol, smoke, marry (without parent’s permission) as from 18. But you’re not entitled to be in charge of your own economy until you’re 25, 26. Unless you get some kind of paper signed that your parents are bad people and can’t handle your money. You’re actually still called a child (Kindergeld) although you’re old enough to have a couple of them yourself.

I just think it’s weird.

Slap Nick Griffin!

You might not know exactly who Nick Griffin is, so I will tell you.

He is the party leader of the BNP, the British National Party, a British right-wing racist party which main characteristics consist of them being douchebags. You can look them up on the Wiki, you’ll see what I mean.

Anyway, now, thanks to the internet, you can slap Nick Griffin.

It is strangely cathartic. I recommend you do it. He has already gotten almost six million slaps.

Marxists reloaded

No, this won’t be about communism. Au contraire. I want to take a look on libertarians. But what puzzles me is that they are basically the same when it comes to their arguments. Listening to some libertarians sounds like “This is true because Hayek said so.” Of course you can exchange Hayek with Friedman, or whatever conservative economist you like. But here comes the funny thing. This is damn close to what large parts of the world had to listen to between 1945 and 1989. “We have to do so, because chairman Mao said so!”, “It is right, because Marx wrote so”.

Well OK, you have to admit, in the defense of the libertarians, that Hayek and Friedman unlike Mao or Stalin were actual scientists. But their guru-like status in the libertarian community is still awkward. People who fight so hard to throw off “society’s opression” follow some scientists like lemmings. Their strongest arguments are quotes for example from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations”. Just like commies use to quote “The Communist Manifesto”.

In both cases I feel like in church when the priest reads the mass. “Behold mighty Hayek in all his glory! Our lesson today is taken from the gospel acording to St. Milton (Friedman), chapter 4 beginning with the 3rd verse: The market giveth and the market taketh away. Blessed be the name of the market!”

Now exchange ‘Hayek’ with ‘Marx’, ‘Friedman’ with ‘Lenin’ and ‘market’ with ‘state’, and the keynote address to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is ready. Same bullshit, different color (if libertarians actually have one).

You have utopists here, utopists there, utopists just everyehre. At least the church folks are honest enough not to promise you heaven on earth. Unfortunately it is the misery of human existence not have perfect solutions at hand. You just have to decide which problem piss you off less. But make the decision for yourself. Listen to all the Hayeks and Marxes, take their word into account, but never just parrot them. Otherwise don’t call it politics, just be honest and call it faith.

Zombies!

One thing that fascinates me, is the fact that there are real life zombie parasites that can take over your brain and control your behaviour.

No, really.

Don’t believe me? Well, it’s true. At least if you’re an animal other than human.

See, there’s, for example, the green-banded broodsac. What it does is, it’s a parasite that infects snails, grows inside them, makes them blind and partly alters their behaviour. The snails are still alive when they’re being taken over by these things, and I can’t imagine it being very pleasant being a snail with a flatworm that slowly eats its way through my body. And after they’ve infested the snail, they also makes the snails eyes glow red. No, seriously.

Why do they do this? Cause the flatworm wants to be eaten by birds, since then it can spread through the bird. So by making the snails blind, they prevent them from seeking out dark areas where they can hide, (I can’t imagine the glowing eyes part helping in that regard, either) so that the birds can find the snails more easily. The birds eat the snail and the worm, and the worm spreads by traveling with the bird and spreading eggs with  the birds poo. That other snails then eat, and become infected.

No, seriously, there are mindcontrolling flatworms that fly in birds and propagate through bird poo. Look it up.

The world is a very weird and scary place.

See also, the zombie ants taken over by a different kind of flatworm, which takes it over and makes it climb grass so that cows can easier eat it by accident and the flatworm can spread through cow poo.

Veerrrryyy weird. And scary.

Come on!

Where are you fellow monkeys! There’s no action here. I, for one, think it’s a bit funny that Obama got the nobel peace price this year. Let me hear some of your thoughts on that. In Sweden we usually make fun over the norwegians. Doesn’t seem too far off now, does it.