Die ganze Welt des Wahnsinns » Posted in English

Slowest blog on earth

cd — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 19:39:35 +0000

When I switched to WordPress 3.0 I installed a new version of the “WP Super Cache” Plugin. The authors have added a feature which provides static files for Google Pagespeed to improve the rating. Ironically, after enabling this feature Google now rates my blog “slower than 100% of the websites”…I think the cache may need a little debugging….

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Diego Maradona in pain

cd — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 19:34:19 +0000

Diego Maradona’s reaction to each of the four goals Germany scored….4:0 and with every goal you can see a piece of his ego break away…

Don’t cry for me Argentina…

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Vuvuzela – This is how it’s done

cd — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:50:10 +0000

Ever wondered where the discinctive sound of the Vuvuzela really comes from? Wonder no more! Here’s the answer:

Vuvuzela

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Michael Jackson R.I.P.

cd — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:36:21 +0000

Propofol

Michael Jackson – King of Propofol
August 29th 1958 – June 25th 2009
This is it!

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Super Mario dies in BP oil spill

cd — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 13:01:57 +0000

Only days after Spongebob Squarepants was found dead in a large puddle of oil the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has claimed another celebrity as its victim. Last night Super Mario was found floating face down in the water close to the Mississippi delta. Coroners are examining the cause of death. A little more than a week ago Super Mario was found to have been a radical communist and a member of the Russian Red Army, so at this point, a suicide as the cause of death cannot be fuly ruled out.

Super Mario dies in BP oil spill

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Tiger Woods will save the day

cd — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:46:12 +0000

Honestly, I have no idea why BP keep wondering how to plug the blown out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. They already have the solution at hand…they’re going seal the hole with a “junk shot” made of mud, old tyres and golf balls..so where’s the big deal? Get Tiger Woods…he knows how to handle golf balls and he sure knows how to plug a hole…

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Lena Meyer Landrut – Germany can do better than that

cd — Tue, 18 May 2010 15:49:34 +0000

Some of you might have noticed, there is a thing called the “Eurovision Song Contest” to be held in Oslo from May 25th until May 29th. You might also have noticed Germany’s finalist Lena Meyer Landrut. You might also have noticed her semi-spastic “dance” style and her pronunciation being…err…sub-standard…
My prediction “Germany – zero points”… But, in defense of my country, I have three words for you:

Philipp J. Frenzel

Rate his videos on youtube, visit his Facebook page and listen to more of his songs on his Myspace!

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Porn to be wild – Steve Jobs wants a clean iPad

cd — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:47:21 +0000

You might have heard the news already… Ryan Tate from Gawker Media wrote an email to Steve Jobs because he didn’t buy the iPad being a “revolution” as the commercials suggest because Apple is so restrictive about what kind of Apps and Data officialy makes it onto the iPad and iPhone.
The master himself bothered to reply.
Tate’s message:

If Dylan was 20 today, how would he feel about your company?
Would he think the iPad had the faintest thing to do with “revolution”?
Revolutions are about freedom.

(for the kids: He’s talking about Bob Dylan)
And Steve Jobs said:

Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, Freedom. The times they are a changin’, and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is.

Riiight..so my future freedom is what Apple wants it to be?
I am one of those “traditional PC folks” although I switched to Mac quite a while ago. Mac and PC are incomparable to me since they are not only different systems, they are completely different concepts. While I liked messing around with different hardware, experimental drivers, experimental operating systems etc. when I was young, nowadays I prefer the all-in-one concept the Mac has always offered. No hassle, no crashes…and I don’t care about the limited portfolio of hardware because as a businessman I need my spreadsheeds, my word processor, a database and email…that’s it…no fancy graphics, no ATI Radium with a cooling block the size of a small car…BUT that’s where it ends for me…
I don’t mind Apple being restrictive regarding the code of applications…that’s one of the reasons their stuff works so well (most of the time)…but content? That’s a different story…

Porn is dirty and masturbation makes you go blind, but let’s face it, guys! Had we had a thing like the iPad to hide under our blanket at night to whack off to some porn movie rather than to the female underwear part of a mail-order-catalogue – we would have used it! When we grew older and were suddenly at legal age for getting and consuming porn and alcohol, these things got old very quickly…we got wasted a couple of times…watched a few porn movies and all of a sudden we had grown up and had actual women to whack off to (or with…) and getting wasted became a sign of immaturity…but none of us ended up like the anti-pornography-movement thought we would.
The arguments people bring forth against the internet are the same arguments they used for XXX-channels on satellite TV, and before that they said the same about porn DVDs, and before that they said the same about porn VCR-tapes, and before that they said the same about porn-cinemas and magazines, let alone graphic novels (both of sexual and non-sexual subject)..and all the generations which were said to be doomed by the downfall of moral values have grown up to become normal adults…

I as a teacher say, porn is part of growing up…for boys more than for girls, but it is integral…while now as a school teacher I of course must object to any pornographic imagery, I also know that doing “something bad” is a vital part of a treasure chest of memories…the first cigarette you secretly smoked in the bushes and thought your parents wouldn’t notice because you chewed gum afterwards…the first beer…no one thought it tasted good, but no one wanted to admit that…and the first porn movie someone’s older brother had gotten and given us to watch…then we felt like real men…and none of us became a drug addict (for a longer period of time I mean.. ) or a porn star…

Dear Mr. Jobs,
I love the stuff your company makes, but please keep in mind a company of your influence has a moral imperative when it comes to protect children and adolescents, but as soon as you’re dealing with adult customers it’s their business what kind of material they choose to enjoy on their iPad or iPhone…and it’s the customers’ responsibility not to let such material fall into the hands of minors…if an adult wants to whack off to some internet porn on a device made by Apple, it’s part of his freedom to do as he pleases..
Let me put it this way: As I understand, unlike here in speeder’s heaven (aka. Germany) there is a nationwide speed limit in the USA. While it would be no problem to install a device that limits the top speed of a car to 75 miles per hour, would you buy a Ferrari or a Porsche or a Mercedes Benz with such a device installed? Or would you refuse to buy a car with such a limiter? You know there is a speed limit…still, you want to “choose” not to exceed it, rather than being forced to obey by technical means…give it a thought, Mr. Jobs…

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Owned beyond belief

cd — Fri, 14 May 2010 05:07:28 +0000

SO owned, watch this:

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Language barrier

cd — Wed, 12 May 2010 21:10:15 +0000

I was discussing the conflict in Israel and the Gaza-strip with my best buddy the other day…since then, a question has been occupying my mind:

Does anyone know how to say “Excuse me, but I’m afraid you have annihilated my satellite dish.” in Hebrew?

Just wondering…

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(almost) finished

cd — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:08:09 +0000

Ok, the redesign is almost finished. Features:

New theme (“Mystique” by Digialnature), the tabs in the sidebar on the right are for (left to right) categories, tagc loud, archive, most popular posts and latest comments.
New name: Bastard Teacher From Hell
Multilingual – Notice the language selector at the top of the right sidebar? “Posted in English” category is gone in favour of an actual multilingual website powered by WordPress Multilanguage (WPML).
Separate feeds for the respective languages. Subscribe to http://www.drossmann.de/wordpress/en/feed/ for the English-language-feed, which is also available on Feedburner: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BastardTeacherFromHell

Apologies for any messages in German that might pop up ervery now and then…theme localisation is not 100% done yet, but it will be soon…

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Claim token for Technorati – please ignore

cd — Wed, 12 May 2010 14:08:48 +0000

BGUJJ27AWM79

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Technorati

New theme – blog under redevelopment

cd — Wed, 12 May 2010 02:14:51 +0000

You might have noticed the new theme. You might also have noticed that I also added a language selector to the blog. From now on, I will no longer use the “Posted in English” category for posts in the English language, but the English part of the Blog…apologies for any inconvenience caused by me messing around with WPML…the translation might take a while…

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For Facebook: Christian found a dead brown cow on their farm. Oh no!

cd — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:14:17 +0000

dead cow

Christian was farming when a lonely Brown Cow wandered onto a landmine in FarmVille. She smells very bad and needs a burial right now.

In other words: No, I would not like to have a fishtank in my profile, thank you!

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The joys of German federalism

cd — Sun, 09 May 2010 21:07:09 +0000

Ah, what joy! The voters have spoken in North Rhine Westphalia – exposing one of the greatest flaws of German politics: federalism! While others may regard it an extra protection against giving too much power to a single person, I still regard it a serious flaw, because it allows to happen what Germany is facing right now. Just FYI, in Germany the federal elections are held independently from the elections in the states. German elections explained in a nutshell: Unlike the US of A, the states’ “governors” (“Ministerpraesidenten” as we call them) and the number of states a specific party “wins” have absolutely no effect on how the government in Berlin is formed. The states have an influence on how many seats in the federal parliament the respective parties of all states get, but that’s it. So where is the flaw? Since the governing party (or parties, as it is the case with CDU and FDP right now) and the chancellor at the helm are voted for directly by the people in a great federal election, it is possible that party A wins the majority in the federal elections and their candidate is pronounced chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, while party B holds the majority in the federal parliament (I shall spare you with the difference between “Bundesrat” and “Bundestag”…google is your friend), since they got the most votes state-wise. To make the problem worse, federal elections and state-level elections are not being held at the same time, because the legislative period on the federal level (chancellor and governing party) lasts four years, while the legislative periods on state level last five…except for the states of Bremen and Hamburg (which are considered city-states…the reason being of historical origin too boring to explain here), where the legislative periods last four years. This leads to the elections being anticyclical, which means: party A (or a coalition) might have the majority in both the federal elections and in the federal parliament, but if that majority happens to have been a close shave, they could lose it in any state-level election held within the legislative period of four years – which has just happened!

While the CDU (Completely Dysfunctional Union) and the FDP (Fatal Democratic Pandemonium) are still the governing parties in Berlin, they lost so many voters in the state of North Rhine Westphalia that from tonight they no longer have a majority in the “Bundesrat”…while optimists welcome it as a “balance to the government”, I welcome it as “the demise of the government”…I am not convinced, the Government will take the result “as a warning” as the German minister of applied linguistics and head of the FDP, Guido Westerwelle said…I much rather think, this will lead to even more disagreement on both federal and state level leading to an unleverable blockage between the governing parties and the parliament for the rest of the legislative period…bloody marvellous, but I never expected the coalition to work in the first place…and rumour has it, being foreign minister of Germany is by far not the first job, Westerwelle has blown so far…

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How to say “no” the Tim Minchin way

cd — Sat, 08 May 2010 23:47:57 +0000

“I’d rather staple my foreskin to the roof of a descending lift.”

(Tim Minchin, the “hysterical prince of piano”)

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A song about the Pope

cd — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:59:35 +0000

This is why I love Tim Minchin. He managed to create sheer musical beauty while retaining his trademark subtlety…a happy song about the Pope with criticism hidden very deep between the lines…a masterpiece!

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Watch your language, people!

cd — Wed, 05 May 2010 15:09:51 +0000

Yes, we all know that problem…children and juveniles nowadays make frequent use of bad language. As a teacher, I am trying hard to counter this trend, but obviously to no avail. And all of you might have already figured, this is of course attributable to the music played on the radio and on TV these days. While listening to one of my favourite records, the album “Rage against the machine” by a band with the same name, I immediately heard an example for what is going wrong nowadays.

The song “Killing in the name of” features the following line, which is repeated over and over again:

“Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!”

Phrases like that mess up our children’s language. As responsible adults we all know how this should have been phrased…it’s got to be:

“Fuck you, I shan’t do what you tell me!”

There you go…watch your language, people!

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Of bishops and bullets

cd — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:33:38 +0000

The USA Today poses the question: “Should some bishops ‘take a bullet’ for the church?” Well, I’d like to answer that with a counterquestion: Why “some”?

Personally, I don’t really care whether it is for, against or regardless to the church, as long as they all take a bullet…

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If you’d like to steal my articles…

cd — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:12:34 +0000

…PLEASE learn how to copy-and-paste!

THIS is the original.

HERE is the copy:

The fuehrer personality of a Catholic Church, Brigadier General J. Ratzinger hold a press discussion in St. Paul’s Cathedral (Rome, not London) yesterday as well as -to everybody’s surprise- took a censure for homosexuality as well as kid abuse in a Catholic Church: “I told my group ‘Go fuck yourselves!’…I didn’t …

kthx!

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Pope takes the blame for homosexuality and child abuse

cd — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:30:57 +0000

The fuehrer leader of the Catholic Church, Brigadier General J. Ratzinger held a press conference in St. Paul’s Cathedral (Rome, not London) yesterday and -to everybody’s surprise- took the blame for homosexuality and child abuse in the Catholic Church:

“I told my men ‘Go fuck yourselves!’…I didn’t think they would take that literally…sorry…my mistake!”

While Bishop Bernando Álvarez from Tenerife blamed the children themselves for “wanting to be abused” the Pope admitted, child abuse was his fault as well:

“I should have watched my mouth…when they asked me how the Catholic Church could help starving children in Haiti, I told them ‘fuck the children’…and so they did…they only followed my orders, as this has been a long tradition in Germany…”

When asked if the affair could lead to his resignation as Pope, he replied:

“I might very well resign as Pope of the Catholic Church…in fact, I have just received offers from both the Taliban and the Church of Scientology to become their CEO…but I am still considering the options…”

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The Germans and their beer

cd — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:11:21 +0000

Alright, more cliché…Let me set you straight…going to Germany looking for a beer, bitch? We’ll give you some fucking hell because the Scots sank the Bismarck with a tactical nuclear penguin!

I admit, the US still have the Dominator…but seriously, what the Fack?

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The Germans: What yodeling has to do with Pearl Harbor

cd — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:00:37 +0000

One of the most cliché-based questions I have been asked is: Do you Germans really yodel?

Short answer: No, we don’t.

Comprehensive Answer: Not anymore. Yodeling has been banned all over Germany ever since the inventor of the traditional “Jodeln”, Afred Jodl” was found guilty in the Nuremberg Trials and hanged as a war criminal.

Only people of non-German origin are nowadays allowed to perform the act of public yodeling. Arguably the best yodler of all times is the Japanese artist Takeo Ischi, grandmaster of the ancient art of Kamikaze-Yodeling, probably best known for his Japanese-language yodeling-version of “Remember Pearl Harbor”. In 1941 Ischi’s father was given the choice between either becoming one of Japan’s famous suicide-bombers and joining his comrades in the attack on Pearl Harbor or becoming a yodeling Ninja . He chose the latter and was sent to Germany as a ninja assassin. His orders were to infiltrate the Wolf’s Lair and to assassinate Adolf Hitler and his Generals through a sudden act of Kamikaze-yodeling. Unfortunately he decided to hide under the desk in which Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg ,leader of the “20 July Plot” , codename “Operation Valkyrie” , had planted the bomb that was to kill Hitler. In a wicked twist of fate, both attempts to put an earlier end to World War II failed, as Ischi Senior’s body was torn apart by the bomb Stauffenberg had planted, leaving Hitler almost unharmed. Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun both died in 2009 in a waterboarding accident in southeast Cuba.

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How Germans do politics part III – musical chairs and Der Brain

cd — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:16:38 +0000

Ok, I promised that would explain what Der Brain had to do with musical chairs. Ever since last year positions have been rotated a lot. I will only mention the most notable ones.

Do you know Karl-Theodor von und zu Guttenberg?
I will simply refer to him as “the baron” as his full name would need more space than I am allowed to use by my provider. A name that would fit a villain in the James Bond series or another series which makes frequent use of the mad-evil-German-scientist-cliché.
We all know that the world suffered a little crisis last year during which the former German Minister of Economics and Technology, Michael Glos, resigned. That was the beginning of a severe incident involving severe Der Brain….

After Glos had resigned, Guttenberg took over..to not so much avail as we can see now. Nevertheless, after the joined forces of CDU and FDP started to form a new government they still considered the Baron to be the man…but something happened!
A long time ago in a country far far away after a long period of bushwhacking a man named Franz Josef Jung, then federal minister of defense of Germany orchestrated what came to be known as the “Kunduz Oil Party”

While the party had been a real blast, it created a lot of hangover too, since there were so many complaints about the party having been announced on too short a notice…to counter the complaints Jung was relieved of his duty and made minister of labour and social affairs (!) instead…a former military man as minister for social affairs? BIIIG case of Der Brain….

One month later Jung resigned again…so we needed a new minister of defense and another minister of labour and social affairs…so guess who got the job at the head of the military? Of course the former Sergeant Guttenberg…but what about the ministry of labour? Along came the then ministress for family affairs, senior citizens, women and youth, Ursula von der Leyen. Hmmmmkay…now the most vital part of Germany’s economy is handled by a former medical doctor while the ministry of family affairs etc. is now handled by a 32-year old named Kristina Schroeder who has little to no experience and just finished her PhD thesis a couple of months ago.

Riiiight…

….ARGH! MEIN BRAIN!

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How Germans do politics part II – Severe cases of “der Brain”

cd — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:57:57 +0000

ok, now that I have explained how the communists chanced their marketing strategy by changing the name of the product, I would like to introduce my English-speaking readers to another phenomenon: Der Brain

A case of “Der Brain” is a case which makes the aspiring self-styled intellectual go “Aaargh! Mein Brain!”. The term refers to an individual who is so out of their mind they make you want to slam their head against something solid until they stop twitching…Sometimes something can be done for severe cases of Der Brain, there can be “Heilung” (“healing”). While in minor cases of Der Brain a small dose of Heilung can do the trick, more severe cases need a lot more Heilung. In Germany’s most severe case of Der Brain until today, the whole German people had to wish the patient that the healing may be victorious (“Sieg Heil!”)…nowadays the percentage of people suffering from severe Der Brain usually ranges between 1 and 2 percent, while the majority of the more severe cases seems to be found in Eastern Germany, since most calls for more Heil have been coming from that direction.Thanks to modern medical science, the former treatment for the most severe cases of Der Brain is no longer applied in Germany and has been replaced by less drastic measures. Be advised that pedophilia is not considered a case of Der Brain! The proper medical term for the sexual abuse of children is “Mein Gott”.

You’re asking, what Der Brain has to do with musical chairs?
I’ll explain that in part III!

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Musical chairs – How the Germans do politics – Part I

cd — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:50:16 +0000

It’s been a while since I last wrote an entry in English here, but today I feel like updating the non-German-speaking world on my view of what’s going on in this funny little country…I have written a lot about education in Germany in my “Dude, you bent my tower!” posts part one, part two and part three and in “Fun facts about Education in Germany”.

In the latter I also gave a brief introduction to how the government works. Today, I’d like to elaborate more on that.

First of all, unlike in the USA for example, the time a chancellor can stay in office is not limited…we hold general elections every four years and as long as he or she gets the majority, either on their own or through a coalition, they will stay in office until they turn to dust…

The most effective ways of losing the position are either by losing the cold war against communism and having the Federal Republic of Germany annected by the German Democratic Republic as it happened to Helmut Kohl in 1989, after destroying serving his country for 16 years, or, like Gerhard Schroeder did, by joining the Communists because they offer a more attractive salary.

Gaining the position is the tricky part. Majorities are hard to get these days as the average German has about as much interest in the deeper workings of politics as their trademark Dachshund…not surprisingly, the number of people who actually bother going to the ballot keeps dropping and dropping…

But we all know that a man named Angela Merkel did it and got elected a second time in a row, despite all bad press and most likely just for the sake of proving the Peter principle. And then the game of musical chairs began…

I refuse to comment on Guido Westerwelle, I have done so already and have nothing to add…

A more interesting thing are “Die Linke” and their story. There was a man named Oskar Lafontaine, a fine example of both solid mental illness politics and why one should always hire a professional. He had been good friends with Gerhard Schroeder until Gazprom political differences drove them apart. And there was a man named Gregor Gysi whose economical status had severely decayed after his Fuehrer had emigrated to Chile…he had learned a lot from his former and now defunct employer, but not from life and as both Lafontaine’s and his political views are so far out left-wing that they come back in on the right Pac-Man-style they decided to ignore any majorities and just found a party on their own..a principle which had already been tested in a broad range and had worked reasonably well in the past century…

Just to make the point clear, Lafontaine and Gysi are that kind of people who would consider Josef Stalin “too far right”. Hence those two made it possible that hell froze over and the CDU actually joined forces with the FDP and tried to form a coalition…well…it seems they’re still trying…the game of the musical chairs began…

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Germany’s apology for Westerwelle’s behaviour

cd — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:17:25 +0000

This post goes out to the whole United Kingdom:

Yes, the most unfortunate thing about Guido Westerwelle is that he does not enjoy skydiving like his predecessor, but we do have the ultimate apology…three words: Mercedes Brabus SL

Jeremy Clarkson will confirm we’re not that bad after all…

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The reasons why Germany wants Westerwelle to be their foreign minister

cd — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:28:05 +0000

Alright, time for another semi-political rant in English.

Many may have noticed we held some elections recently…not necessarily to make things any better, but rather because Germany got tired of complaining about the old coalition running our government, so we wanted a new coalition to complain about for a change…
The first new reason to complain about them is of course a man named Guido Westerwelle. Considering the fact he is the designated foreign minister for the new coalition composed of the Christian Democratic Uselessness and the Fully Democratic Pandemonium he already showed he knows how to handle international business by annoying the BBC. If you’d like to see what happened, check youtube for the video. And you might also want to watch a splendid display of foreign language skill.

Many people seem to wonder why on earth the new coalition chose him to be the new foreign minister if his language skills are obviously insufficient…there is a simple explanation:

I have already written about how the German government works and this case is no exception.
Guido Westerwelle is a fine example to prove my “shit floats” argument. Yes, he’s arrogant…yes, he’s a megalomaniac and yes, his English would not even get him a job at McDonald’s…that’s why he became a politician instead.
So why are we going to make him the foreign minister?

1. The foreign minister’s main job is traveling the world and negotiating things….bottom line is: Westerwelle will be AWAY most of the time, hence he can’t screw up internal matters as bad as he could if he was around all day

2. He has a doctorate in law…seriously…if you had the chance to get at least one lawyer out of the country for the next four years, you would take it, wouldn’t you?

3. He’s gay…not only will that repel the charms of Berlusconi and Sarkozy…we also figured that with Merkel at the helm and Westerwelle at her side, we have to half men running the show which might just be as good as one real man…

4. If Merkel cannot have the better hairdo, she at least wants to be the one looking more competent…

5. His English is substandard and while the parties keep selling Germany’s long history of language deficiencies (Hans Dietrich Genscher is rumored not to have been able to speak any English when he became foreign minister and you sure do painfully remember Helmut Kohl’s and Gerhard Schroeder’s foreign language skills…) as a sign of “cultural identity”, I’m not too worried about that problem…since Schroeder has long joined Gasprom, we do not really need a foreign minister who speaks English as long as we have a chancellor who speaks Russian…
My message to Mr. Westerwelle: If you want to get away with crappy English in a position for which this particular language is key, you’d have to have the personality and political skill of Helmut Schmidt, Willy Brandt or Konrad Adenauer…
As I already said about the German idea of a “Beamter”…incompetence is not a reason to get fired…

But I must add that I am equally disappointed by the BBC…I personally would also have found it quite irritating to be asked to reply to a question in English, but still I would at least have replied IN English to make it clear that the language spoken during a press conference is usually the hosting country’s rather than showing such a nasty lack of diplomatic skill during one of my first public appearances after the elections…yet I would have expected the BBC to send a person more appropriate for the job abroad…what is he going to report about from a German press conference if he doesn’t speak the language? Had it been CNN, I would not have been surprised by poorly skilled reporters…but the BBC…that’s just sad…

I’ll just send him a letter and offer him free lessons, just to spice up my cv…might actually work…

All cynicism aside, I do see a brighter future for Germany…I will love to go to the UK again and again within the next years…just as I noticed people in England stopped asking me about Hitler after George W. Bush had been elected, with Westerwelle I’m sure I will no longer hear any more jokes about Angela Merkel…

As I said…”poets and thinkers”…

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Germans and gun control

cd — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:40:22 +0000

Alright…since nothing interesting has happened for the past few weeks except one half-baked killing spree and the attempt to eradicate child pornography by simply adding „disallow : child pornography“ to all German firewalls I decided to do another English language rant today…

In the context of the Kretschmer-case one question frequently popped up among people outside Germany: What’s the deal with German gun control?
So here is the German gun control laws explained in a nutshell…or a nutshell casing if that floats your boat

1. No citizen may bear arms in Germany. Period. No right to defend oneself with a firearm etc…
2. There are very few exceptions to the rule:

1. A member of a (sports!) shooting club who has proven quite some skill may require a pistol/rifle of his own to further improve his skills.
The process is then fairly simple. The person in question must have been a member of the said club for a while and his marksmanship must not only be at tournament level but must be at a level that could be beneficial for the club’s ranking in national tournaments. If that applies, the club must formally state that this guy needs to be able to train whenever he pleases and not just whenever a club-owned gun is available for training and hence needs his own weapon.
Furthermore, this guy then needs to pass the „Waffensachkundepruefung“, an examination leading to a certificate proving he knows where the business end of a gun is, how to lock and load and how not to kill an innocent bystander on the shooting range…
Once both the club’s statement and the said certificate have been issued, he can apply for a „Waffenbesitzkarte“ WBK for short (weapon ownership card) which is issued by the local authorities. Unless they consider him a threat to all mankind he then will be the proud owner of a WBK.
With this, one is allowed to purchase a reasonable amount of weapons and ammunition of the stated type, i.e. if you’re ratified for pistols, you can’t buy 7,62mm FunMetalJacket, but 9mm Paranoid will be just fine…
You can’t buy a shitload of them, but over the years one can accumulate quite an arsenal, as Kretschmer’s dad seems to have done…

The law also requires you to stash them away in a certified „Waffenschrank“, usually a safe-like metal compartment bearing varous DIN and TUEV labels..they come in various flavours and grades…“Langwaffen“ meaning „long weapons“ = rifles…so one has to make sure to have one of those installed in one’s home prior to purchase…
The law furthermore requires one to have the ammunition stored in a secure place „elsewhere“…either in another secure compartment within the „Waffenschrank“ or in another secure place…

Just FYI: Keeping a weapon locked and loaded at your bedside is perfectly illegal here…Kretschmer’s father plainly violated the regulations, the case is not a question of the gun control laws but more one of having them properly enforced…

2. The second exception is a hunting license. The laws are basically the same except that you will be ratified for „Langwaffen“ rather than for pistols…except for the sidearm maybe…but that’s it

3. Full-auto weapons are illegal in Germany, unless you are a soldier or a cop

4.One is never allowed to carry your weapon in a ready-to-fire state. It must be unloaded and in a secure casing, separated from the ammunition….if you think you’re in need to defend yourself at any time, you will have to apply for a „Waffenfuerhungsgenehmigung“, another governmental permit issued to plain civilians only in very rare cases of threat…usually you’d have to be a policeman, a security guard or a soldier to get one of those…

Alright, hope that rant clarified things a bit…

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Dude, you bent my tower – Part III

cd — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:03:27 +0000

Alright, sorry guys, I promised I’d write more in English and haven’t for about a year..but I couldn’t help but notice that more and more anglophone people seem to be interested in my rants about education in Germany…at least the logfiles say so…so finally, here is another part of the „Dude, you bent my tower!“ series:

Alright, I did mention the PISA-shock in the first and second installment.
I also mentioned that they chose politicians to do the job…and as it is the case just about anywhere in the wold, politicians are usually one’s worst choice when it comes to actually solving a problem..and Germany was no different…

After Germany had recovered from the initial blow of „hero to zero in ten easy lessons“, they came up with a whole lot of bright ideas to save the day…they wanted to dominate…and history tells us that whenever Germany tries to dominate, things get ugly very quickly…
To understand why Germany is completely lost when it comes to things other than designing cars, brewing a decent beer and designing nuclear weapons, you must know the key feature of the German people: They’re whiny and impatient…

Whatever happens, it’s -thanks to the marvellous BILD newspaper- always a complete catastrophe and sure to be the knell for all mankind…you thought Woody Allen was depressed? You haven’t seen a German shortly after the reception of bad news then….and the usual reaction is: We demand our truste(e)d politicians (hey Gerhard, how are you getting on with your Russian lessons?) to change the world…within a second or two…

So here’s what German politicians sold as a „solution“

1. They started discussing whether it still made sense that rules and regulations regarding education were state law, not federal law

The idea of having each individual state take care of its schools all by itself might seem a good idea in a country the size of the USA…you can cross Germany north to south or east to west within a couple of hours….so it might not be such a great idea here…still, the bottom line was that education shall remain a matter of state law…
Some of the states, such as Bavaria and my current homestate North Rhine Westfalia have centralized examinations for the finals and interim evaluations (google „Lernstandserhebung“ if you happen to understand German), while other states do not….in those states every single school has a different final examination leading to the „Abitur“…
But not only that…Bavaria and NRW might have introduced centralized examinations….but do they have the very same ones? NOOO….of course not…that would have made too much sense…so even with centralized examinations, Bavaria still has standards different from NRW or other states….completely ridiculing the reason for having a centralized exam in the first place: standardization! Mind you, to get from my home to Bavaria I’d have to hit the Autobahn and drive for a measly four hours….
So, get this: Germany has standards for just about anything. There’s a shitload of DIN-norms….hell..I mean, there probably is a DIN telling you how to pee the proper German way…if I bought an M4 nut in Hamburg and an M4 bolt in Munich, I would trust my life on the fact they’d fit each other perfectly….but if a child from Bremen is -for whatever reason- forced to move to Duesseldorf, it will most likely have to redo a grade because the syllabus is different…how sick is that?

2. They cut the 13th year

They looked at those countries who had surpassed us in the PISA-evaluation and finally considered the thirteenth year in school unneccessary…
I agree..from a practical point of view the knowledge gained in the final year is less than useless…it belongs to the „nice to know“ category, but not knowing these things would hurt no one…especially when we consider the fact that universities retrain all necessary skills to homogenize the students, since they -as mentioned before- all have different levels of knowledge…
So, guess what they did? They cut the 13th year and let the children be? NOOOO….of course not….they DID cut the 13th year, but kept the syllabus!
Result: Even the eleven-year-olds now have to stay in school from daybreak until late afternoon….they kept the syllabus and crammed it into the remaining 12 years…
Well…that’s how it is in other countries you might say…but wait…there’s more ingenuity involved!

Yes, other countries such as Belgium always had their kids stay for much longer than the usual six periods formerly common in Germany…but…they were PREPARED for this…because there is one more thing children need besides love, liberty and Ritalin…children need FOOD every once in a while!
So, guess what just about any school in Germany DOESN’T have? …a canteen!

Okay…cliffhanger,…stay tuned!

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Dude, you bent my tower – Part II

cd — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:07:31 +0000

alright…were was I ?

Ah, yes…they gathered politicians to save the PISA-shocked Germans…I think I mentioned how one gets into the ministry of education, didn’t I ?
So they tried to figure out what went wrong and how come the country that once produced marvellously bright people such as Albert Einstein, Wernher von Braun and Juergen Klinsmann suddenly failed so horribly.
In 2000, in our trademark field, the natural sciences even the Czech Republic was better than us. We were number seven, not from the top, but BELOW THE AVERAGE!
Regarding reading comprehension, we made 21st place…regarding the relationship between exceptionally bad and exceptionally good pupils only Mexico, Brazil, Luxemburg and the Republic of Latvia had more illiterate pupils than us and on the good side we still were two places below the average. At least, we were slightly better than France…and no, I won’t mention the results regarding mathematics…
But we also had highscores. No other country had more pupils who stated they didn’t like to read (>40%). And in no other country among the countries which participated your success is as determined by your social origin as it is in Germany…even in Poland or the Russian Federation poor children have a better chance for a good education than in -as we used to call it in German- “the country of poets and thinkers”….yes…I agree…we wrote lots of poems about how good we THOUGHT we were…

Wanna know what happened ? Stay tuned…

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Dude, you bent my tower!

cd — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:16:26 +0000

Well, here I am again to tell my anglophone readers tales of greatness about education in Germany.

Today’s installment of spoon-fed wisdom shall focus on PISA – Permanent Incompetence Sucks Ass.

First, a little lesson in architectural history. Most of you should know there is a country named Italy. In Italy you will find a place named Pisa. This is famous for its leaning tower. A marvellous piece of medieval civil engineering having become THE metaphor for making the best of a basically good thing having gone horribly wrong. To me this is the reason the Programme for International Student Assessment was given the same name…

To save the tower from collapsing (mainly because then Pisa’s economy would have done the same soon thereafter…) they gathered the world’s best civil engineers to find a solution. Read the story on Wikipedia…

Look at the infamous PISA-shock which struck Germany. The race that once tried to conquer the world (which was an Austrian’s fault by the way…Californians…we warned you…you didn’t listen…you should have considered what the one Austrian leader we ever had did to our country…it’s a miracle that the Governator hasn’t invaded Mexico yet…) was nowhere to be found among the top ranks. The papers were outraged. They published articles about how close Germany’s education system was to a complete meltdown. Oh really? I wouldn’t have noticed…
What did they to do save the day? They gathered politicians…

stay tuned!

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Fun Facts about Education in Germany – The basic structure

cd — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:06:05 +0000

Ok, to help you understand why I sometimes can’t help but yell at people for no reason, I’ll start with a brief introduction to what once was a working system…

1. The school system is part of the German government. Employees with a permanent contract usually have the status of a “Beamter“, so teachers are somewhat equal to policemen, judges etc. This is where the trouble starts. Germans are commonly known to be thorough whatever they do…Beamte like to plan thoroughly…they like laws…they like to be strict…they need you to fill in forms for just about anything…then they need to fill in forms too…you get the point…
Beamter is a lifetime-status. To lose it, you must be a child-molester or a mass-murderer. Otherwise you’re set for a decent pension once you turn 67. You cannot be fired for being an alcoholic…you cannot be fired for being a drug-addict…you cannot be fired for calling in sick for a period of two years or for calling in sick about every three days…you cannot be fired for being an incompetent retard…once you are awarded this status, you officially made it…girls, if you want to marry a German, marry a Beamter…you will have to apply for an application form for the permission to have sexual intercourse three days in advance and you will be given permission about two or three months after the day for which you wanted permission to have sexual intercourse on, but hey…you’ll be driving a BMW or a Mercedes…
Did I mention German teachers are usually Beamte, too? Yes…German teachers cannot be fired for being incompetent….
So what can one do? Those of you who work with/for/under/against your country’s government will already know the answer: You write them a report that certifies they’re brighter than Einstein and Hawking together and have them promoted out of your school…the other school does the same…and this usually goes on until they’re at the top of the ministry of education…and just guess how great the legislations are these people pass in this country…

2. There is no such thing as a preschool in Germany. Kindergarten isn’t mandatory, so children may be raised as vegetables until the age of 6 when they are deemed mature enough to be locked away in a classroom to their parents’ delight…

3. after four years in primary school their teachers will recommend what type of secondary school their parents should send them to:

-the Hauptschule (5-6 more grades, lowest grade of education, usually leads to crate-shifting in a warehouse, alcoholism and/or suicide)
-the Realschule (6 more grades, medium grade of education, usually leads to a more or less decent career in an office of some kind)
-the Gymnasium (9 more grades, highest grade of education leading to the “Abitur”, the only grade which allows access to universities)

There is one hybrid school called the “Gesamtschule”, a formerly experimental type of school which coeducates children of any capability and offers all available grades up to the Abitur…some states in Germany consider them a failure and abolished them shortly after their introduction, other states consider them a great invention…

Another special form is the “Foerderschule”, a school for the mentally incapacitated/disabled, children with physical disabilities, children with behavioural problems and educational basket cases, usually leads to having your application rejected no matter how bad the job is you apply for…

4. For those who strive for a non-academic career, Germany has a thing called the “Duales System” (=dual-system, ironically, the same term is used for households dividing their garbage into organic and non-organic and thus needing a grey and a yellow garbage can…). They become an apprentice (if they manage to find a company who offers apprenticeships…) and work for six months, then they go to a “Berufsschule” (“profession-school” = vocational school) for six months, then go back to work for six months etc…after three years they’re done…

So much for the basics, more on Wikipedia if you care…

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Yes, I do speak other languages…

cd — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:10:26 +0000

Hello and welcome to my English-speaking readers!

I made a special category for postings in the English language so from now I will occasionally write something intended for a more widespread audience…
This blog was originally intended to be about GermanAlice, the German version of the popular Alicebot. Since the mailing lists’ lingua franca is English, I decided not to exclude a large portion of the Alice-community any longer and maybe show them bits of my world besides the development of talking machines…

The blog is titled “School – Education – Educational Sciences – Psychology – Violence – The world of madness”.
Over time I will gradually explain why I chose this title.

A brief explanation for now:

I studied to be a school teacher for philosophy and the English language, worked in the university’s department of educational sciences for a while, specialised in educational psychology with focus on more severe disorders such as Borderline and similar personality disorders and juvenile violence, school shootings and the likes, did some research, published some stuff, got a deep insight into the German education system…and you know what they say…what was seen cannot be unseen…

Today, I’m a happy freelancer and I teach the English language to anyone who wants to learn it…I do freelance work for some schools and I have contracts with some firms in the area…

So don’t expect any highly scientific stuff here, I mainly use this book as a means of stress-and-anger-relief whenever Germany and the Germans drive me up the wall again…

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A little story about counterfeiting money

cd — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:52:39 +0000

I once had a reamarkably clever young boy in one of my classes in the ghetto school I used to teach at. His father had a scanner and a colour printer, so he figured he might “earn” a few Euros by photocopying a note or two. While this is technically impossible nowadays (most photocopiers are equipped with an algorithm which can detect banknotes and refuse to copy one) it still worked quite well back then. His victim of choice was the old lady who ran a small general store just across the street from the schoolyard. The old lady probably never thought a thirteen-year-old would do such a thing, so she took the fake notes every time he came to buy stuff at her store and always gave him real money as change. This had been going on for quite some time…until he got too cocky…

After we had planned a day out for the class near the end of term, one of the teachers gave him the task of taking the money we had collected to the bank. He of course showed off to his classmates by exchanging some of the notes with his homemade ones…result: His home was seized and all hardware confiscated (his parents were so not happy…). He was lucky he could not get arrested because he was under the age of fourteen at that time…

Moral: Ghetto kids are harmless…they do have quite a bit of criminal energy, but they usually lack the brains to use it

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