Some people do think it is morally wrong to have sexual intercourse before marriage. I will not go into the historical details from which this tradition derives, but want to point out that in the olden times women were considered ready for wedding (and bedding) after their first flowering. I don’t say that’s a good thing, but I underline that the whole no-sex-before-marriage thing was a different one back when the whole business started, because before the marriage women were usually 12, and not 22 (like today).

Anyway, it has religious roots, and is a religious thing. And because the Church is more and more seen as a rather immoral institution in the public, they can’t really work with ethical arguments anymore. So they try to make up new reasons, medical ones, for example.

The current Pope was the first to announce that wearing condoms actually increases the chances of getting AIDS – he did that last year at a press conference in Africa. I was shocked and outraged, and still hold that he should be imprisoned for that statement.

The health care reform in the US (which President Obama signed recently) includes $250 million for abstinence-focused education. The reason for this is that “sex before marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects” (yes, that is actually a quote).

Now, there are two things nearly everybody likes – one of them is pizza. If one wants to avoid that his children become obese and die of arteriosclerosis with 30, one will have to teach them why eating too much pizza can be bad, and why a bit of pizza now and then will most probably not have adverse side effects – as crossing the street responsibly will most probably not get you killed (unless you live in Moscow, but that’s another story entirely).

It’s all about responsible behavior, about common-sense, about judicious assessments of situations. Telling children they mustn’t eat pizza (“because I say so, and I am your father!”) might work for some, but it clearly won’t work for the majority, and that is very well known.

The same applies to the second thing most people enjoy very much – sex. It’s a rather basic human thing, we’re more or less built to enjoy it. Having sex in a responsible way – and that, fortunately, does neither say something about the quality nor quantity of sex – has extremely little chances of causing physical harm. But the side-effects can be severe, if certain measures (CONDOMS!!) are ignored.

Let’s take another look at the abstinence programmes: “Abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems”.

Yes! That is entirely true. Not crossing streets will clearly reduce the chances of getting overrun by a car – from 0.0004% to 0.0000%. Is that tiny little bit of risk reduction worth staying at home all the time?
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CSU-Generalsekretär Alexander Dobrindt hält die Grünen für “eine verkrustete und verzopfte Partei, mit der Zukunftspolitik nicht möglich ist”. Daraus schließt er: “Politische Gemeinsamkeiten mit den Grünen sehe ich Null Komma Null, die kann man nicht mal mit der Lupe suchen”.

Soso. Nicht mal mit der Lupe suchen. Von finden kann da ohnehin keine Rede sein.

Denn: im Gegensatz zu den Grünen sind die Christkonservativen modern, zukunftsorientiert, und alles andere als verkrustet. Und verzopft sowieso nicht.

Herr Dobrindt ist wie ein sehr schlechter Film, der deswegen schon wieder gut ist.

Kennt ihr solche Filme? Nichts ist amüsanter als ein miserabler Film, der sich selbst ernst nimmt und für besonders herausragend hält. Wie Battlefield Earth oder Druids.

Hut ab, Herr Generalsekretär. Oder am besten gleich: Krawatte ab, und stattdessen lieber Comedy machen?

(Quelle: tagesschau.de)

(1) Why pirates save the environment
The pirate raids in the seas east of Africa have had a significant impact on the environment: international trawlers that were illegally fishing there for years have apparently been avoiding the shores, which led to a dramatic increase in fish stock. In Mogadishu (capital of Somalia), the growing supply has led to decreasing prices, thus people who live there can actually afford to eat fish for the first time in many years. So far, most of the fish was exported.
(Source: sz-online.de)

(2) Why there is beauty in architecture
I have not seen anything like that before … take yourself 12 minutes, relax, get a cup of tea and a blanket, and watch this. Please.
And after you realize that this is nearly 100% rendered (this is not filmed, it was created with a computer), I hope you’re as amazed as I am.

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The new German government has deleted several documents from the website of the Ministry For Environment, which was in the hands of the SPD in the last legislative period and is now governed by the Christian Conservatives.

One example is a brochure which was widely used as study material in German schools, showing the difficulties and potential dangers of nuclear energy (the UNESCO awarded a price to the booklet in 2007); another example is the publication “Nuclear Energy – An Expensive Meander – The Myths of the Nuclear Power Industry“, authored by Sigmar Gabriel (SPD), the Minister for the Environment of the last legislative period.

These documents were silently removed with the simple reason of lobbyism. I hope one day society will acknowledge the importance of us “internet people” who carefully watch these things and ask questions.

When the Ministry was asked to comment on this, they didn’t even bother to come up with proper reasons.

The first reason (1) which was given – stating that all materials authored by ex-ministers are removed as standard procedure – is proven wrong, since there are still bazillion of publications of ex-ministers on websites of Ministries; the second reason (2), stating that online brochures are removed as soon as there aren’t any offline brochures available is not only completely insane (why would you remove free digital information when the same information is not available anymore in a paper version?), but also untrue (several brochures on websites of Ministries are declared to be unavailable as paper version, and it is therefor encouraged on those very sites to download them for free).

Unbelievable.

Update:
One day later the Ministry for the Environment realized that their plan to clandestinely remove critical papers towards nuclear energy failed – the news of the removal spread on the internet.
The answer: a polite “thank you” by the press office, followed by uploading the documents in question again – (1) and (2).

(Source: Netzpolitik.de)

A few weeks ago elections were held in the German county Thüringen – which was governed by the Christian conservatives (CDU) for quite a while now. They lost 11.8% votes though and dropped down to 31.2%, and the left party (Die Linke) scored second with an outstanding outcome, leaving the social democrats (SPD) as third party far behind.

It was the choice of the SPD to make up their mind who would govern Thüringen from now on:

• CDU + SPD (48 out of 88 seats)
• SPD + Linke + Greens (51 out of 88 seats)

The ruler of the left party, Bodo Ramelow, even offered the SPD that he would pass on the office of prime minister (which is very unusual, because the left party would have been the biggest party in that coalition) to make it easier for the SPD.

But the SPD chose to form a coalition with the CDU (sic!), disappointing many many (many) voters by ignoring the possibility for a left coalition. The CDU was governing Thüringen alone for 8 years now, and it was the chance for the SPD to bring change to the country.

Now comes the interesting part: when a new coalition is formed, there is a statutory meeting in parliament where the delegates vote for the new prime minister – in this case Christine Lieberknecht, CDU. A simple majority is needed, and Lieberknecht failed twice this morning, receiving only 45 out of 88 votes.

I’m happy to see that there are still decent SPD delegates in this country – on the other hand it’s quite sad to see that there are only 3 out of 18 in Thüringen.

Anyway: thumbs up, guys. Keep going!

Update, one hour later:
Christine Lieberknecht (CDU) was confirmed as prime minister with 57 out of 88 votes. I assume that the FDP is responsible for that, because they are rather in the opposition against CDU + FDP than in the opposition against a left coalition.

(Sources: wikipedia.de for the chart, mdr.de for the content)

The new German ministers for the next 4 years have been announced, and our most beloved Mr. Schäuble will become minister of finance. The heads of the three coalition parties – Merkel (CDU), Seehofer (CSU) and Westerwelle (FDP) – gave a press conference today.

A Dutch reporter asked Merkel how she possibly came up with the idea to nominate “a person” as minister of finance who “forgot” about receiving 100.000 Deutsche Mark when questioned in the German parliament in 1999.
The background: Schäuble took 100.000 DM from an arms dealer in 1994, denied any financial transaction when questioned in 1999, and one year later admitted receiving 100.000 DM.

Merkel replied very shortly that she trusts “this person” (both actually avoid the name Schäuble). The reporter pretends to be confused and asks again, but Merkel just dodges the question, and the moderator goes on: “next question, please”.

• Video of the press conference (youtube, 1:13 minutes)
• background on wikipedia (unfortunately only in German)

(Source: fefe, wikipedia, spiegel)

Autor: Christian Gosse

Tja, offenbar sind die ersten Casting-Runden der alle vier Jahre stattfindenden Show “DSDOK” herum und die Auserwählten werden in den nächsten Wochen einige Workshops absolvieren und in mehreren Mottoshows im Bundestag und auf internationalen Konferenzen ihre Fähigkeiten unter Beweis stellen.
Die diesjährige Jury bestand als “Mama” Merkel, “Grinse”-Guido und “Heiland” Horst und wenig überraschend haben sich zwei der Jurymitglieder selbst ins Kabinett gewählt.

Hier also die voraussichtlichen Finalisten und ihre Ensemblerollen:

Angela Merkel: Bundeskanzlerin
Diese Rolle hatte sie schon die letzten vier Jahre gespielt, doch jetzt hofft sie, mit der neuen Bandbesetzung endlich die Misstöne abgestellt und ein paar harmonische Kantonisten verpflichtet zu haben. Merkels mütterlicher Charme hat sie schon in der letzten Staffel zum Liebling der Zuschauer werden lassen.

Ronald Pofalla: Kanzleramts-Minister
Sozusagen der Notenständer der Kanzlerin. Muss nicht singen, was vielleicht auch ganz gut so ist.

Guido Westerwelle: Außenminister
Singt die zweite Solostimme, vor allem bei internationalen Auftritten. Hat langjährige Bühnenerfahrung, aber gilt beim Publikum oft als ein bisschen selbstverliebt. Hört sich selbst gerne singen.

Wolfgang Schäuble: Finanzminister
Hat durch seine eigenwillige Interpretation des Innenministeriums viel Kritik beim Publikum einstecken müssen, und auch das Verfassungs-Komitee würdigte seine gesetzlichen Leistungen nicht in dem Maße, das er erhofft hatte. Aber chor-intern gilt er als Meister der schwierigen Töne, er singt Tonfolgen, die sich kein anderer traut, nicht mal Guido. Daher vielleicht eine gute Besetzung als Nachfolger für Peer Steinbrück, der ebenfalls sehr außergewöhnliche Tonlagen beherrschte, wie man in der Schweiz, Liechtenstein und Mali feststellte. Für seine neue Rolle hat er zumindest einige Erfahrungen mit Briefumschlägen sammeln können.

Thomas de Maizière: Innenministerium
Gilt als zuverlässiger Notenständer und -umblätterer. Soll seine Kenntnisse mit auch schwierigen Partituren nun im Innenministerium unter Beweis stellen. Das Publikum erhofft von ihm eine wesentlich verträglichere Interpretation des Gesetzesstoffes als sein Vorgänger pflegte.
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Minister of Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) said a few hours ago in an interview that the law to censor the internet in Germany – with the official reason of fighting child pornography – was passed in order to set the CDU apart from other parties in the final part of the election campaign, and that it contains mistakes and errors.

As long as politicians lie, as long as they at least pretend to do things that are good for the people, they fear us, at least a tiny little bit. But as soon as they actually tell you that they don’t care at all, that they just did what they did because they wanted to be re-elected, as soon as a Dick Cheney actually admits that the US went to Iraq for oil it’s a sign that things not only not go very well, but that things are quite out of control.

Sueddeutsche.de writes:

Der Minister gab handwerkliche Fehler beim sogenannten Zugangserschwerungsgesetz für Stoppschilder im Internet zu. Das Gesetz zum Schutz vor Kinderpornografie sei im Endspurt des Wahlkampfes auch deshalb entstanden, um die CDU gegenüber anderen Parteien abzusetzen.

Unbelievable.

Introduction:

• This post will be updated regularly in the weeks to come
• Explanation of the parties: CDU/CSU are the two conservative, christian parties; SPD = social democrats, FDP = liberals, LINKE = left-winged party, GRÜNE = green party

Overall:

• 1) CDU/CSU: 33.8 (-1.4)
• 2) SPD: 23.0 (-11.2)
• 3) FDP: 14.6 (+4.8)
• 4) LINKE: 11.9 (+3.2)
• 5) GRÜNE: 10.7 (+2.6)
• OTHERS: 6.0 (+2.1)
• PIRATES, included in “Others”: 2.1 (+2.1)

Interesting facts:

• Only 70% of the German people went to vote (-7%)
• CDU/CSU+FDP: 332 / 622 seats (53.38%), a clear majority; it is obvious that our new government did not just win due to the difficult direct mandate system which was declared anti-constitutional a few months back
• FDP, LINKE and GRÜNE achieved the best results in the history of their parties, no need to talk about the SPD on the other hand
• In this election, the German Bundestag was voted. Oversimplified: they propose bills. The bills then go to the Bundesrat (the second chamber), which is the representation of the 18 German counties; in this chamber, SPD-LINKE-GRÜNE currently have the majority – they might just block laws from our new government

Voter migration: Read the rest of this entry »