Saradoc1972

18 minutes ago, stevenl said:

So who is at the helm then? "if they still are at the helm of anything"

You tell me. That is, if you either are or speak German (Austrian, Swiss, other minorities, I'm not picky) and have followed the news over the last 2 years....

Otherwise... whew, where to even start? Not gonna come back to that today.  

New topic? Germany going down the drain headline on TV? "Germany is abolishing itself" as by our own Mr Sarrazin from 2011?

Earnestly, between CDU and SPD, both in a so-called great coalition, being unable to come to much of an agreement about what needs to be done, further being blocked by a majority of countries in a red/green coalition in the second chamber, justice administration (along with effective deportation) being constitutionally in the hands of the countries, I don't think anyone could be considered at the helm of anything at the moment. Merkel pretends to be, that yes, but she totally, completely, deservedly isolated herself in Europe and frankly seems at wit's end inside Germany.

Orbán and Kurz, that's the Hungarian PM and the Austrian Secretary of State, seem to be at the helm, just not in Germany. I'd vote for both of them, if I could.

Duh. I see no reason why I should utter anything more optimistic. They're gonna get another whacking round the head by constitutional court today, but it's not like that is addressing what Holy Angela wrought upon us. Glad I live in Thailand. Really.

6 minutes ago, stevenl said:

Strange comments with a center-right party at the helm.

Strange center-right party at the helm, if they still are at the helm of anything, that is, to warrant comments like that.

1 minute ago, Baerboxer said:

 

Whilst you can appreciate what those in 1948 were thinking that's obviously open to misuse and achieving the opposite of intended purpose.

 

But throughout the West you can see now how the liberals, democrats, left, whatever they call themselves try to label any opposing view as extreme, false and try to get it suppressed. This tactic was used by the old East European communists albeit more overtly.

 

The EU, through Juncke, actually did this when he warned the German people not to vote for the AfD as the EU commission would not work with them.

 

These people are trying to change the political landscape of Europe to one in which yes, you can vote for a choice of people, but all those people are actually from the same liberal left PC parties. So nothing really changes other than people's names.

 

Dangerous times.

Can agree to that. See one of my above posts where that Christian-Democrat's party-whip misspoke without noticing, saying "wrong opinions" needed banning,  when supposedly he had been ordered to demand legal steps against "false news". Well, CDU supposedly are not "left", or "liberal"(which has a different ring to it in Europe than in the US), rather conservative, but they came to that sorry state when Merkel decided she just wanted to stay in power, not make the politics her party got elected for.

2 minutes ago, Baerboxer said:

 

Are you proposing that only when / if they become popular should a party be banned? I hope that's not your meaning.

 

The fact Merkel decided to announce "open doors" for illegal migrants as well as real refugees, without consulting the German parliament or any of her EU leader colleagues speaks volumes about her understanding. But after so many years in power that isn't surprising really.

By the wording of the German Constitution, no, a party can be banned regardless how popular; by the ECHR's take.... well, they don't expressly say popular, but it would boil down to that in that it would take some real power, i.e. existing mandates or potential mandates, to be a threat to democracy and human rights.

I did not state a personal opinion as to that, apart from stating that most European states are making do without provisions to ban a party. As to the NPD I hope I was quite clear. Bit of a lawyer's take, I guess.

18 minutes ago, the guest said:

I thought Germany supported 'freedom-of-speech', or is this only selective democracy at hand here?

Seems we are going that way... they are now calling for Facebook to ban "Fake-News", whatever that is, and defamatory statements (I personally so love to demean our rather short-of-growth Minister of Justice, Little Heiko (Maas), for being totally out of his depth in office) within 24 hours of notice from some adlatus from the CDU-government, or else. Plus, some Merkle-sycophant has been calling for minimum-sentence-guidelines for that sort of hate-speech, so state's attorneys and judges can no longer strike out any of those cases; naughty.

1 minute ago, zydeco said:

But the German Communist Party is legal. But that's okay because Merkel was a Communist, too.

Can we leave the DKP (or KPD, I really would have to look up what they call themselves today) or the Marxist-Leninist-whatever, including the Judean People's Front, out of this? They are nowhere to be seen, apart from defacing other people's billboards. Nobody bothers, so should we. 

Merkel does seems to have her very own understanding of who kind of "owns" the state once you made it to the top, that much is clear.

Forgot to include in my above post: most of the European states, supposedly democracies, apparently make do without provisions to ban parties.

In Germany's constitution from 1948, which was sort of imposed on it, but is not at all bad and has served as a model for a lot of states, it's in more or less for historical reasons. Whether that helps remains to be seen, right now the chief-whip of the CDU-faction (that's Merkel's Christian Democrats) in Bundestag is calling to apply criminal law for "wrong opinions" (sic!) published on Facebook. He really said "wrong opinions"!

They should not have brought this to court a second time, so soon after failing for the first time.

They (as in: all 16 German countries plus the feds) tried in 2003 and failed miserably. In Germany, a party can only be banned by the Federal Constitutional Court, the "Bundesverfassungsgericht", short "BVerfG" (the 16 countries all have their own constitutional courts, almost unheard of, more or less only handle rather obscure matters). The NPD is a rather unappetizing agglomerate akin to the British National Party or such, where most politics revolve around "Germany for the Germans" and "foreigners out" or something like that, blood and honour, and revisionism including holocaust denial. 'nuff said. Can you people please just pop out of existence? It's so saddening when young peoples' hair just don't seem to grow anymore and those right arms appear to be stuck up where they are.

In 2003 BVerfG declined after some hearings to pursue the motion by those 17 actors because their "Verfassungsschutzämter" (i.e. internal secret services, of which Germany likewise has an independent one for each of the 16 countries, plus a big one for the federal republic; and, no, this does not work)  had inserted just too many informers ("V-Männer", i.e. "Verbindungsmänner", which translates to informers, spies, snitches, or just people on the agencies' payroll) right up into the highest echelons of that party, so the court deemed it was no longer able to determine what positions the NPD had genuinely propagated, and which those paid henchmen had come up with in the first place. Major disaster, major loss of face for a state trying to ban a party it was now seen as having instigated to excesses itself.

So, when this first collapsed in 2003 the federal government decided it would have no part in a next round of proceedings, as they put it back then "If this fails again, we might just as well print a large supply of those black-white-red flags plus logo they give away for advertisement with tax-money in our federal printer-shop". While, possibly, the snitch problem might have been overcome to the satisfaction of BVerfG, we might know by tomorrow, proving they are actively fighting the German constitution, i.e. Germany being a free, lawful, parliamentary democracy, is tricky at best. There has been at least one expertise submitted to that effect, but those experts just can't seem to get into a matter-of-factual tone, always sound like they are on a mission. Tricky anyway, let's see what BVerfG makes of it.

Last hurdle will be the ECHR's ruling (that's the European Court of Human Rights, mind you, which sits in Strasbourg and has nothing to do with the ECJ, the European Court of Justice sitting in Brussels ruling on violations of EU-treaties; well, there *is* some kind of connection, but it needn't bother us here) that for a ban of a political party there also needs to be a palpable danger for the state in question and its democracy and adherence to human rights' standards.

NPD, with some 3 percent of voters (which kills them in the crib because of the five-percent threshold) in their strongholds in eastern Germany (special reasons for that, don't blame them, please, and don't call those areas "Dunkeldeutschland" ("Dark Germany"), as our sad excuse for a President Gauck did recently, he himself hailing from there), falls well short of that sort of threat. As a matter of fact they now, as per the last elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommerania (short: McPomm, the rather lonely, scenic area along the Baltic coast next to Poland) in October 2016, they are no longer in any sort of parliament above communal level. It was all taken away from them by the newcomer-party AFD (Alternative for Germany). By now, all they have got is a total of some 350 representatives in isolated minority factions in a number of city halls. Big whoop.

So, as a couple of major figures in German politics have already let on, this procedure before the BVerfG is going to fail. Almost certain, we'll know by tomorrow,

As to the AFD, I would have a couple of things to say about them, as a matter of fact I am going to vote for them in September, come hell or high water, and it's going to contradict the runt from Reuters who wrote that article above on how they are supposedly anti-immigrant or something, but that's not the immediate topic here. They are not undemocratic because you don't like them, read their manifesto, then write your news-clips.

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"We have agreed on the introduction of mandatory residency, in layman's terms: stricter domicile requirements for asylum seekers who have been deceptive with their identities," de Maiziere, a member of Merkel's conservatives, told reporters.

Have you now? And who is going to make them stick to those domicile requirements? How?

It's not like this hasn't been tried recently, just a couple hundreds of our new skilled labourers simple disregarded them and sat in a train from the disliked rural parts of eastern Germany straight to the Ruhr-area, where the was more of an ethnic community living. Place is becoming completely overrun and going bust with the welfare they have to dole out. Sat in city halls during the public discussions how to enforce those rules like they were saying: You can't make us stay anywhere, be careful what you say here and vote for, there is too many of us, imagine if we get angry. 

Now earnestly: collect them 40 apiece and sit them in a bus or train back to where they are supposed to keep residing? You'll need a hundred police to do that, you'll need to protect the driver, make them stay in that bus or train, and the thing isn't going to look all new and shiny when you are done.
 

Which residency requirement exactly, when a lot of them have up to 20 identities or are going to acquire them while there is still chaos reigning and they are slow keeping up with fingerprinting? Anis Amri had at least 14 identities, they are still counting.

What if they just sit in the next train back to their desired destination again? Train operators have ceased going after them for not having bought a ticket, they are considered without the means to pay up, the fare or the fine. By the way, that's how criminal statistics are fudged these days. No reporting to police, train operators consider that a waste of effort, so we got ourselves upstanding model citizens. 

Prison after the third or fourth case? Hardly in Germany for that kind of offence. As a legal resident, yes, you will go to prison for dodging fares after a while, still some deterrent when you have a household and job to keep. Prisons are full to the brim anyway, when they were not in 2014. And some of those chappies are hard to handle, isolation cells are now constantly in use. 

Great. Sit down, have a scone.

So nice to see there are no other problems in Germany, so Specialdemocrats have time to pursue their pet projects. Like her party colleague and Minster for Justice, little Heiko, who recently tried to bring legislation under way to curb sexist speech in ads. Whatever that is and what's the problem.

Lass in the picture is Manu "Küstenbarbie" Schwesig, the Barbie from the coast of Mecklenburg, she actually is Federal Minister for everyone except me, i.e. Family, Seniors, Women and Youth. Well, in contrast to Claudia Roth and some others from the Greens, she is a step in the right direction.

6 hours ago, Andaman Al said:

So just let the women and kids starve at sea. I am sure the people of the world were not this uncivilised when borders did not even exist.

 

i imagine many that say 'turn them back' will also claim to be Christian or some other God loving religion. " Save the poor and homeless of the world, as long as you dont make my country the one that has to take them in."

You'd be surprised.... In his "De Bello Gallico" Julius Caesar describes how during the siege of Alesia the besieged Gauls ran out of food and went to drive their women and children out of the city gates to make them the problem of the Roman siege force. Who let them stay where they were, in no-man's-land, to starve.

As long as you don't make my country? This is exactly what happened in late 2015 when Balkan countries and even Austria chartered busses to move droves of refugees, actual or not, on to the next border. And before with Dublin II, when Europe tried to effectively make Greece and Italy to take anyone, which those countries answered with some underhand resistance.

6 minutes ago, Retiredandhappyhere said:

She will have a tougher battle in next year's elections!   Hopefully, much tougher!

How tough can this one be? It's either going to be a third Black/Red great coalition again with only slightly over 50% (say, 30+21), or failing that the same leg cramp with an FDP (yellow, 6%) or Green (11%) addition.

You get it? There is no way round her getting re-elected. At least this time there is going to be an opposition in parliament, the AFD.

On 11/30/2016 at 4:32 PM, dick dasterdly said:

And yet its largely the ordinary left wing voter, or those that have been left behind, that has resulted in brexit and Trump?

 

Unfortunately, this has resulted in those left wing voters voting for anything that takes them out of the current situation.

 

Whether this is true or not in Austria, I have no idea.

 

In short - please give up on the left wing terminology.

The "left behind" notion appears to be all the rage in Germany and Austria to explain away the fact that the PEGIDA protesters and the AFD/FPO voters (where AFD is rather moderate, aside from a few hardcore members) want things to change because they feel they have been moving in the wrong directing for too long, the refugee crisis -which is rather a government and democracy failure- being the final straw. Rightfully so. Our own fruitloop of the year, Katrin Göring Eckardt, faction leader of the Greens in German parliament, has recently admitted, some people were not simply unjustifiably feeling left behind, they in fact had been left behind, "abgehängt". As opposed to Saint Angela, who two weeks ago called dissenters "losers of modernisation" (Modernisierungsverlierer, literally). Now imagine that, it's a rare turn when the head of government of a democratic states calls her opposition losers. Unabashed, no public outcry in the mainstream media.

I don't think it's really to do with that, might come on top or be the root cause with some few individuals, I rather think people don't like what they are seeing and are acting in democratic self-defense. That's what the faction leader of Germany's fruitloop-party, the Left (Die Linke), conceded likewise two weeks ago. Remarkable girl, Sarah Wagenknecht... isn't at the height of her popularity in her own party over a spell of sensible comments like that now, but you actually can take her for real. Which is remarkable for someone in that party, of all.

I did not know him, sorry about it.

But in earnest: OK age to draw the curtain, and then that's how you want to do it. Retire in Thailand and just keel over one fine day, never felt a thing. At least that's how it likely sounds.

12 minutes ago, Morch said:

Holocaust survivor's heartfelt plea goes viral ahead of Austrian election

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/holocaust-survivors-heartfelt-plea-goes-viral-ahead-austrian-election-1593901

 

I see where you're coming from, but I don't see how Hofer and the FPÖ are to do with the Nazis... 

What I see is that the pendulum has swung two far to the left in the last 25 years or so in western/northern Europe and it needs to go back or we are not going to recognise our own civilisation and culture any more. It's all bound to change over time, that much is clear with globalisation. But there is only so much change you can expect most of the people to accept, and there is change that best shouldn't happen. Talking, as always, about the growing Muslim population and what they are even now starting to impose on the rest of us either by criminal means or on the back of what we are told are human rights. Constitutional rights and human rights are a good thing, but they have evolved in a non-democratic process that needs some tweaking by an elected parliament now and then. And that, in my opinion, is where the so-called "far right" come in, the other parties having become too entangled in their narrative of multiculturalism. 

She fears for her future? Because what happened in the US election? How and why is that? Because somebody won in a legal, democratic process? Just the wrong one? Yes, that's the Greens, the spearheads of democracy in Europe, along with their social-democrat and Left cronies. Someone doesn't see things the same way, you want them strapped of their vote or something because only YOU people know how to save the world.

Nobody knows how the Trump presidency is going to turn out, neither does anyone know how Hillary's might have turned out, both for the world and precious Europe, yet it's apocalypse now already. That must be the diffuse and irrational Angst everyone from the oh-so "populist" downright nazi racist camp is supposed to feel trapped in for having been "left behind". That is btw, what Holy Angie called her opponents quite recently, "losers of modernisation"; publicly and unashamedly. We've come pretty far when a leader of state calls dissenters that.

Don't worry about the impact on Merkel, the German domestic intelligence service is subdivided into 17 entities, one for each country no matter how cash-strapped, and the republic as such. They have always been known for blatant ineptitude and bumbling about. Got called "Nulpentruppe" quite recently by a Left member of Hessian parliament, which aptly translates to "gang of losers". And the secret service, BND, does not fare much better both in public and international opinion.

2 hours ago, aussieinthailand said:

"Due to the new voting and vote-count systems, the political party with the most votes will not be garanteed to form the government. The one that fails to get the most votes may succeed," The deputy premier said.

Ok so am I missing somthing here?  A party that dosn't have enough votes can succeed,   What in the wide wide world of sports is going on then?   Ohh Ooop's my bad, TIT...  

I remember reading some months or eben a year ago they had considered introducing the German electoral system of "personalized proportional voting" un the new constitution. Did they? Maybe that is what he is referring to with all the additional direct mandates that would incur.

Photo taken on 14.09.2016 inside Chonburi (Pattaya) Land Transport Authority Thingy

Should have been rescued back to Libya. Just our beloved greatest Chancelorette of all times, defender of the western world, tells us what's left of Libya government-wise isn't taking them back and we can't make them, because they'd pose a "robust threat" to our European armies. Might as well do away with those then. I totally fail to understand the whole business, I just know it's going to plunge Europe into chaos and oblivion.

You are not doing an Ishihara test. The girly in the land transport authority thingummy will rather point to a poster on the wall that looks like the page of the Ishihara with not hidden number in the dots, she will point at various random dots in rapid succession, like red, red, green, yellow, red and if that seems to work, that's it.

It's usually more or less binary in that you either can do it or you just can't. If you can do it slower, well, tell her and it should be ok.

If Obama so likes that old witch, can he please - pretty please with sugar on top- take her with him, doesn't matter where?

Because they are going to put her up in the next German general elections 9/2017 because there is nobody else there, and she is going to make it because otherwise it's going to be red-greens-leftists and/or the drunk from the EU-Parliament for chancellor, and frankly, there will be nothing left by 2021 if that comes true.

Maybe you want to practice driving a bike over a narrow ledge, maybe two or three long boards?

I took that test and passed the first time, I never had a bike license in Germany and never ridden a bike for earnest. So I took driving lessons, as far as those can be had here. First were two afternoons in Cambo, paid the guy known as the organizer and farrang-taxi in the village 10 dollars each to whip up some 15-y-o Honda Wave lacking headlights, indicators, and mud guards, and went practicing a whole afternoon on a field driving circles and waving about, accelerating up and down slopes, then took to the road, waving round puddles. Then enrolled with a driving school in Pattaya, 4000 Baht for 5x2 hours which first took place on a patch of open land halfway to the traffic authority studded with some obstacles like pylons and said boards laid out to train for that part of the test, on the second day we took to the road, little Thai cranking his head to see over my shoulder riding pillion. Worked for me.

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On a desk in the hotel room, police found eleven used 10-pill strips of Quetiapine, which is an anti-depressant prescribed as a sleep aid for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Nope folks. Quetiapine is not an anti-depressant, it is a modern neurolepticum or antipsychotic agent with sedative qualities, but not really strong ones either. As such it will likely be used to go with antidepressants, as an adjunct, e.g. to treat sleeping disorders or mitigate the manic or sub-manic part of the bipolar disorder. Still, likely was depressed.

While Quetiapine can be had over the counter in Thailand, in Germany it is prescription only, it never causes any cravings, let alone any that would result in an overdose. And while you can kill yourself with it if you take a lot, I had never heard of it being used for that. Anyway, that was a lot of medication (200 mg are the biggest pack you can buy in the non-sustained release variety) for a lot of money. 11 strips is almost 4 packs, they are 3.400 Baht a pack in that strength. 400 dollars, 350 Euros.

I could not be bothered reading beyond the first page of this thread, so just my twopence as a former lawyer: 5k Euro, 4k quid, or whatever are not a sum you want to get involved in an international lawsuit over. Certainly not if you are putting yourself at the locals mercy in that you likely can't read the language and at least try and make up your mind about the relevant statutes and public registers and can't talk proper to the  guy you need to hire as a lawyer, unless it's someone very expensive. The risk of losing even more than the original sum is too great to try doing that, unless money is no concern; doesn't sound like that. It's called throwing good money (which you still have) after bad money (which by the sound of it you are very unlikely to ever recover). I could possibly tell you a couple of things about company law and how you step into a company's shoes if you take over their name, don't know if that holds true in Thailand and even so you don't know if you will ever be able to nail down their assets which are maybe vested in s.o. else's name and leased out and whatnot.

I've had a case where some lady invested a lot more money in some business in Germany, a snack bar in some picturesque location down-south, never looked after that business because the guy she hired to tend to it was so swell, and found out it had all vanished just like that, with the inland revenue breathing down her neck. Told her to not even think of going after that lowlife, no money to be had. Same with some of my own fees, with some people you might just write them off. They either deign to pay or nobody can make them. They are the sort of existence-artists who have arranged themselves with living their lives on assets nobody can prove or touch, and the courts and bailiffs on top. Just stopped bothering and get away with it.

Write it all off is the phrase of the day for this.