With every Pound Sterling they generate, investment bankers in the City of London – they earn around 1.0 million Pound Sterling – destroy seven Pounds worth of common property.

Says the British Think-tank nef.

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Frau Käßmann resigned.

The immediate reaction is a great lamentation:

Poor woman.

The same would not have happened if it had been a man.

She served us and our cause poorly (Alice Schwarzer).

What are the facts?

The lady has an alcohol problem she now approaches hands-on.

She made a mistake the consequences of which she accepts.

Absolutely correct.

With all our moral hypertrophy,

It is no longer possible

to call a MISTAKE a mistake.

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The things I read on blogs and twitter. Sheer madness!

Wow, some of the concepts written in there are over the top even by my standards.

Then I think:

If twitter and blogs had existed in the GDR, they would have been treasure troughs for the “Stasi”.

Now, we also have homeland security and a Federal Intelligence Agency. They are always on the alert. And many other secret services look for potential terrorists like for the needle in the haystack.

Maybe they all search the internet and look for suspicious ideas and articles.

In that case, the agency would have to be doubled in size each year in order to manage. The growth is quite apparent.

That would mean new and well-paid jobs.

So – let us all do a lot more twittering and blogging!

RMD
(Translated by EG)

One way or another, what happened around the “tax CDs”, no matter if they are real or probably only exist virtually, still causes an upheaval inside me.

Tax evaders are criminals. Criminals must be punished. If they committed a severe crime, they even must go to prison. We should buy the CDs.

That is what we hear around every corner and it seems to be the general opinion. Although the people I know and have been discussing it with do not share that opinion. They believe the state should not use more and more questionable methods and make denouncianism more and more respectable.

And then I think that the state and the public morals have just sought the easy way out. And I come up with strange ideas:

Is it really the tax evader who is doubtless the criminal? Or does not the state at least have a share in the guilt by taking away so much of the income from its citizens through a system that nobody can understand any more?

As I see it – and this is how I also read it, for instance, in my favourite constitution, the Bavarian one – the state has a number of duties. It must administer the power monopoly adequately. It should serve the citizens. It should give structure to the economic life. Education, safety and some sort of social network are part of its responsibilities. It has to provide a functioning infra structure …

And then one can think of stupid questions like these:

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Or maybe: Panem et circenses.

When I was a child, I often went to the Sowjet Zone. In the general language use of the Federal Republic of Germany of the 1950ies, as well as in my home, that was what we called the GDR. The term GDR was frowned upon just as much as the term “so-called GDR”.

In the Sowjet Zone, I always enjoyed particular luxury. My great-aunts always had plenty of money (for which – according to them – you could not buy anything), and the rolls and malt beer were very cheap. Later, my father explained to me that prices for victuals and books were artificially kept low. Because – unlike the Federal Republic of Germany – the GDR was a country where inflation was outlawed.

Incidentally, it is true that victuals, living space and other necessary basic articles like energy were hugely subsidized.

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Switzerland (Schweiz) is a welfare state. It does an awful lot for its citizens. I know quite a few Germans who would wish to see Swiss conditions in Germany. When I hear them talking, I ask them if they also wish to introduce Swiss labour law.
They say: Yes, why not!

Well, I tell them, because in Switzerland there is no dismissal protection (Kündigungsschutz) as we know it:

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The science council advised us to educate Imams in the teaching of their religion at German universities. I read so in the Spiegel and also heard the same thing in the news. Allegedly, the advice was well received all over the place.

I am irritated by this wide-spread acceptance. Don’t we see ourselves as a modern and secularised society? The number of Christians dwindles, the number of people calling themselves “without religious affiliation” increases. This tendency is absolutely undisputed.

Why is it common practice in this country that the instruction in Christian religion is paid for by the state and managed by the state? Why do free German universities educate Catholic and Lutheran clergymen and teachers of religion at federal expense? And why do we follow the concordat and pay the bishops out of the federal budget?

Mind you, this happens regardless of the fact that we have a church tax in Germany (I do not know any other country that has a church tax), which is a systematic financial subsidy of churches by the state.

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Since this is the weekend, here is another very special article: a fairy tale about politics and business! The story was related to me by an expert in the illumination market. I re-wrote it in the form of a fairy tale. My source, however, thinks it is not a fairy tale at all. He insists it actually happened like this. Let’s go!

Once upon a time, there was a queen. She reigned over a powerful kingdom in a rich continent. Just like her subjects, she always wanted to be the European and World Champion. Chances were quite good, because during her reign, the only people who succeeded in the only issue any of her subjects were interested in were the women (code word: princesses Prinz ).

Our queen always distributed her people’s money quite lavishly. Consequently, she was well-liked by the other kings on the continent and the powerful of this world and by the great business nobility lobbyists. The kings of the continent met on a regular basis for royal dinners. The queen was permitted to sit at the table and once in a while even to raise her voice a little bit. She was always very enthusiastic.

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After three wonderful days of skiing with Barbara on the Kanzelwand (Kiezlern, Kleinwalsertal), we got up at 7 a.m. this morning. As predicted both by the weather forecast and our innkeeper, it had snowed. The Renault is covered with ten centimetres of freshly fallen snow. We enjoy a leisurely breakfast, then Barbara takes me to the railway station at Oberstdorf. Because I want to go to the RISE meeting in Zürich.

I want to take the ALX 39555 train from Oberstdorf to Immenstadt at 8.05 a.m. It is a very short distance – about 30 minutes. The display panel says: train has been cancelled. So we drive to Immenstadt – there is very little traffic, no significant obstacles, just a little snow on the streets.

From there, I want to take the ALX 38702 to Lindau at 8.43 a.m. It is another short distance – approximately 55 minutes. The display panel says: train will be delayed by about 60 minutes. So we take the car to get to Lindau, as well. Not a problem. We have to take a small pass. Even though there has been no winter service, we manage to cross it just fine. There is not really all that much snow to be seen anywhere.

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I have now been nursing an idea for some time. It is a wonderful technological idea. It might revolutionize the IT world.

I would like to register my idea as a patent. Naturally, I consulted an expert. Mind you, I did not just ask some Jack or John, no: I asked a really competent expert.
The result was a disappointment to say the least. My idea can probably not be patented,

regardless of it being a really wonderful and totally ingenious idea.

In return, I learned a lot about patent law and its application.
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