Tag: Eurowasteland

Things Behind The Pleasure Palace

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

I live near Schloss Benrath, dear worst-reader. If you haven’t worst-read by now, I also live near the Rhine River. I live here because, well, the better-half, the dictator she is, has made it so. And it’s not so bad to live here, don’t you know. Especially considering it’s a great locality to walk Beckett, the killer pug. Although the town of Benrath is a borough of the city of Düsseldorf, its location gives it a kinda/almost rural atmosphere. This time of the year, though, it’s not so great during #Eurowasteland heatwaves. The humidity here is horrible. Then again. The weather during most of the year here sucks. But. According to the dictator, I guess, it’s great nevertheless–and I’m stuck.

Schloss Benrath is a so-called pleasure palace. What the hell that means, I have no idear. I walk by it or around it or through its grounds almost every day. Does it give me pleasure? At the least, I have no clue what a pleasure palace is. Of course, this is Germania. What the hell do you think these people do with themselves all day between over-engineering, over-managing, over-organising and always hung-up on their past/history? And yet the train system here is still never on-time. That worst-said, I don’t think pleasure palace means what a modern porn-ridden society thinks/wishes it could mean.

The pleasure place was built by some rich schmuck a few hundred years ago. Like all the #Eurowastelanders of the time–you know, those f’n feudalists-fcuks–they got their rocks off by shatting on others. That is, pleasure for them wasn’t just about gettin’ the knob suckled or whacked or jimmied by slaves and servants and underlings. Pleasure was mostly derived from controlling human beings through hereditary means, gifted privilege and God/Money sanctioned perversions. This, indeed, is #Eurowasteland’s greatest historical export. You know, white-supremacy and the hob-knob that is mostly embodied today in my beloved & missed #Americant–#MAGA–if not the dumbasses in Brexit-kingdom. With that in mind, thanks a whole fcukin‘ lot Europe for all the spiteful white people confusion!

Before I get too wrapped-up in my own uglies, like I said, the Pleasure Palace is where I walk Beckett, the killer pug, at least two or three times a day. Between all that, I worst-write something here and there, send it off to editors and publishers and the interwebnets, then return to marital un-bliss, and walk the fcukin‘ mutt a fourth or fifth time. The good news is: sometimes I see a thing or three that riles me. Hence the last pic in the series above.

The other morning I was walking along the Rhine via the rear entrance of the huge backyard of the Pleasure Palace and I happened across an odd scene. Now. You’ll have to forgive my lacklustre photography skills here. For a brief moment I thought–in the last pic in the series above–I was looking at a bodybag. I stood for a few moments staring at it. I even took off my glasses to adjust my eyes, rub them and then refocus after putting them back on and looking from the horizon back down to the object. Could that be a sleeping bag, I thought. Wait. I’ve seen bodybags before. They’re always some dark, dull colour either black, grey or green. I mean, it’s not uncommon to find corpses around here. In fact, it was a big deal a few years back when I lived in Düsseldorf’s nemesis city, Köln, which is just a tick further south on the river, that bodies were found here and there. Supposedly Köln has a bit of reputation for whatever faction of Euro mafia using it and its surrounding landscape for getting rid of bodies. I even thought: wow, should I call emergency services?

Luckily the dude that had obviously spent the night on the river-beach eventually twitched and moved but didn’t rear his head. To each his/her own, eh. And goodness forbid I wake someone up from blissful sleep. Relieved I continued my walk along the river and then entered the garden of the Pleasure Palace where I proceeded to take a few pictures of excavated tree trunks and an odd piece of equipment that I couldn’t identify. They’ve been doing a lot of work around the Palace’s grounds this year. Something about the soil rotting and getting rid of dead/dying trees, etc. Is that pic of equipment for logging? Nomatter.

The other pictures were taken at other times but perhaps can give any worst-reader an idear of how beautiful this place is–toads n’all. In fact, on any given weekend, year ’round, couples have their wedding photos done here. And. By-the-buy. I heard someone say once, something like twenty or so years ago, Michael Jackson had considered buying the palace. Obviously that didn’t happen. Not sure why. It’s not that celebrities haven’t bought castles n’shit in the old country before. Perhaps Düsseldorf just couldn’t give it up. Either that or someone already knew about all the stuff Jackson did with his young friends at Neverland. Yeah. Europeans are well versed in that sort of thing.

Rant on.

-T

Wine Tasting Plus Brexit Conclusions

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

wine tasting plus brexit

It was supposed to be about the wine last Sunday. But we sat across a couple from Engaland. That is, she was German and he was Cockey. Other than that, nice folks, don’t you know. But then, after an agreement on Grauburgunder there was a sudden disagreement on Monarchies. A disagreement on Monarchies, of course, lead (worst-moi) to other pseudo criticisms derived from being a failed expat. For you see, dear worst-reader, the holy trinity for the grand $hitshow that is the world we live in today is thus:

  1. capitalism run-amok
  2. religion
  3. monarchs

(Note on list above: not necessarily in that order.)

The thing is, at times I just can’t help myself. I mean, of all the #Eurowasteland places I’ve been, of all the languages that confuse (for none of them do the opposite of confuse), the one place that has always fcuked with my head the most… is Engaland. Sure, I share a cousin-relative language with the Brits. I also grew up in an area of my beloved & missed #Americant that even serves (lusts for) the same kind of greasy breakfast. And then there’s the confusion of our flags. You know, the Union Jack and the Stars & Stripes. Or is it red, white and blue that makes them all the same? Wait. The French and the Dutch also have red, white and blue. Ok. Forget flags.

Here’s the gist of this worst-post. After being invited to a wine tasting that I didn’t want to attend in the first place, and then letting myself go–as I can easily do when it comes to drinking–we were savouring a joyous 2018 Grauburgunder (Pinot Noir) that tasted of slate, rose pedals and a hint of berry-galore when I turned to my new Engaland comrade and said:

Yeah, but you guys, instead of worrying about playing second fiddle to the fcuking Germans–as you always do unless the Americans come to help you beat their a$$–maybe it’s finally time to heed what the continent was able to do where and when it counts: get rid of that fcuking useless queen and her inbreds. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m not just singling out your piece-of-shit, useless monarchy. You should even help the rest of the world get rid of all monarchies. Come on. Wouldn’t that be a good thing instead of bitching & moaning about how Germans are better at everything–especially democracy, government services and, of course, making $hit? What purpose does a monarch serve these days? None. So come on, dude. Pull a French Revolution on hereditary privilege. (Long pause.) Prosit!

Anywho. The wine was great. We ordered something like 300,-€ worth of it, which’ll be delivered in mid May. And it also looks like I’ve failed my wife again at the task of making friends.

Rant on.

-T

Have No Fear, Worst-Writer Is Here, To Explain Article 11 & 13 #Eurowasteland

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

Scream no fear all worst

Update: Article 11 is now 15 and Article 13 is not 17. Please apply as you worst-read.

Last Saturday late morning I hopped on my e-bike and trekked to D’dorf’s city-centre to pick up a loaf of the world’s greatest bread and after that consume-to-survive a pair of fancy-pants new Birkenstock shoes. That’s right, dear worst-reader. I got my first pair of Birkenstock house shoes a few months ago. After a bit of break-in (for my feet as much as the footbeds), I’m now sold on these shoes. In fact, my feet haven’t felt this good in years. So I figured a pair of outdoor Birkenstock could also be cool. As of the writing of this worst-post, I’ve worn my new fancy footbed shoes for about an hour each day and I’m comfortable admitting that when I walk around in them I actually shed a tear of joy. They are that friggin comfortable. I’m shocked it took me so long to find this level of foot relief. With that in mind, I suppose a pseudo-worst-review in the near future is worth considering. Check back on that later, baby.

After diddle-daddling around in the city it was time to get back on my trusty e-bike and head home to some worst-writing activity. While on my way, though, I was perturbed by yet another Germanin protest that was occupying the city centre. While pausing at a street corner that I couldn’t cross, I asked a fellow pedestrian what the riff-raff was all about.

“Article 13,” she said.

“Article who,” I responded, thereby also noticing her Königsallee shopping bags. She was lugging around quite a bit of stuff. It soon became obvious, as she resorted to occupying herself with her phone screen and lighting a fag, she was relieved to take a break from carrying all her consume-to-survive krapp around. For a second there I thought about telling her to get an e-bike to carry it all. Blah. Blah. Blah.

It was then I noticed the signs the protestors were carrying.

Oh, that Article 13, I recalled.

Yeah, I remember all that EU Interwebnets copyright bull$hit. Heck, I even worst-thought once or thrice about the issue. When was all this #Eurowasteland Interwebnets copyright nonsense law making bull$hit first introduced, by-the-buy? Nomatter. Luckily the street-hordeing protestors were short and sweet and I was able to get on my early-retired e-biking way soon enough. That was last Saturday, don’t you know. On Tuesday (or so) the EU finally passed Article 11 & 13 (and the whole copyright regulation bull$hit). Whup-dee-fcuking-do, eh!

I’ve actually kinda let go of the whole EU fascination of regulating the Interwebnets. Same goes with taxation–without representaiton–which all the EU can do, as well. Heck, my thoughts have been: they regulate everything else and it seems to have worked out pretty good so far, right? I mean, the EU definitely ain’t #Americant. Indeed. It’s #Eurowasteland. Still. They can’t screw things up anymore than they already are–as lead by #Americant. Or? Also. I’ve been kinda impressed with what the EU has done in recent years (GDPR). Heck, let’s see if they fcuk this up. If that sounds odd (naive), allow me to worst-explain a bit more.

As I touched upon this issue (GDPR and the copyright krapp) ever-so slightly in this post, I think it’s easy to misinterpret what is actually going on–especially when considering how my beloved & missed united mistakes of #Americant talks about it. With that in mind, dear worst-reader, please don’t think that I’m in anyway promoting government. You know, as in big-government. Nor am I promoting authoritarianism via whacked-out, fcuked-up government honey-suckle-ness that is the EU parliament. Indeed. In short, here’s the thing according to worst-writer that I think the EU is trying to do which also leads me to believe that the current protests are somewhat misguided–because they watch too much #Americant Interwebnets krapp.

Technology has long since facilitated the new paradigm. Like any other new paradigm, it is inevitable that the $hitshow of the greed-ringer be let loose. Indeed. In other worst-words: There is Capitalism and then there is Capitalism’s (monster) greed-ringer. As far as I can tell, the only part of this fcuked up world that is attempting to deal with the greed-ringer (legislatively) is the EU. Time will tell if the EU’s attempt at addressing Man’s worst (tendencies) will lead to his best (ill-tendencies) but until then, something has to be done about monopolies, oligopolies and $hitbag internet companies that think they own users, content and the friggin world (greed-ringer-monsters). Obviously, with its misguided and one-sided (one-way-street) capitalism run-amok, the US is legislatively incapable of addressing the ills of not only monopolies but the fact that technology itself has turned to the dark side. Although I agree with some of the issues regarding Article 11 & 13 that are raised by the protestors, the thing that makes me skeptical and thereby question the protestors is that they say (have said) very little about the power (and reach) of monopoly entities like Google, facebag, AWS, etc. Most of these protests seem to be about end users who want to upload krapp–that is not their own. Which begs the question: is this regulation about controlling end-users? From what I can tell, I don’t think it is. I think this regulation is about controlling the big guys. The big greedy guys, don’t you know. FYI. Google has long since become part of the old economy. If it makes money off of content like the old economy did, damn-right it should pay a “link-tax” for that. Should small-time bloggers and vloggers pay the same link-tax? Of course not. The reality is, Google has singlehandedly turned the fcuking Interwebnets into a krappy commercial pre-Internet television $hitshow. I mean, come on. How many ways should a monopoly be allowed to milk suckers? The entire world of technology is acting like one big monopoly with befriended and privileged (moneyed) silos. I’m good with any attempt at regulating that $hit–as long as the regulation is about the big guys and not… the nothingness of worstwriter dot com. Does that make me naive? Maybe. Btw, I only post my own krapp on this blog (other than a few screenshots from the Interwebnets here and there). The real problem is, the old economy has beaten the new economy to a pulp–and Google, facebag, other tech companies have acted and profited accordingly–leaving us users to face the consequences. The only way to deal with a so-called free-market that is obviously not free (run amok) is through government regulation. These companies have had enough time to adjust to the new paradigm that they’ve obviously lost control of. As far as I can tell, only the EU is trying to address this $hit. It might not be perfect but at least it’s something.

Rant on.

-T

Links that motivated this post (that might or might not be legal or might be subject to copyright regulation; sarcasm off):

How Bout A Bit Of Cockup In Your Brexit

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment
screenshot - populism defined
This is a screenshot.

Disclaimer: This post contains purposefully mispelt adult language.

What is Brexit really about (according to worst-writer)? Well, get this, dear worst-reader. Like everything else going on in this day & age of all-things-worst, the thing Brexit is really about is simple–even though the whole debate going on for the last few years has been more confusing than a monarchs detestable bloodline. The entirety of Brexit is about money. Seriously. It’s about nothing else. In fact, at this juncture in The West, everything that is wrong–and all is wrong, if not worst–is about money. Of course, how does one or a nation get money–if there ain’t none left? Now that’s a bit more complicated. To keep things simple: we’re literally at the beginning of the end of Capitalism run amok–just like it once ran amok not so long ago (history repeat). So the real question is: compared to the last time Capitalism lost its $hit and mankind resorted to his most base and banal reaction to deal with it, what will happen this time?

What is it that drives (motivates) all the hate and bigotry in the world? The answer is easy: Money. How does one consolidate all that hate and bigotry with the vastness and power of money? That is, attach it all to being human? If you are thinking Greed? You might be right–in another universe. So here’s the problem: Greed is too open, too plain to see, too out there from the shadows. Indeed. So the real culprit in understanding something that makes the world rotten and sick and putrid… Think Populism. Let the rich and powerful turn over their ills and misdeeds to Das Volk. Pride them (Das Volk) a bit with their nationalism, their skin colour, their tax rates, the cost of living, etc., and BANG! Das Volk will oblige. The flames of anger and frustration can be fed, fed, fed (as in your favoured Federal Reserves is off the hook).

The financial leaders of The West have been plying this deal for decades now. It’s all nothing more than payback from a generation or two ago that are still angry (even from their graves) about how so-called liberalism or democracy stole their wealth–as they bankrupted the $hitshow leading up to the The Great Depression. And so, since the 1970s the steam roller has rolled over you–steered from their grave(s). You probably didn’t notice it on account the steam has been so soothing–and you’ve been working like the schmuck you are so a bit of heat in your worn muscle is welcoming. In fact, it’s probably felt something like rape that has become legal, commonplace, wanted and, of course… grabbed by the pu$$y.

I laugh. I laugh at the participants. They amuse me because, well, I saw it all coming. I didn’t see it in a smart-ass way, though. You know, like college grads see it. No. I saw it in a humble-bumble snarky kind of way where I didn’t just say things but I acted and I wasn’t about to be played in/by this $hitshow. So I jumped shipped. I expat-ed. Mind you, I didn’t go to where the grass is greener. I just went to where greed/green isn’t a singularity dominating the colour of life, money and being raped.

As usual, before I get too far off subject.

Watching and reading about Brexit and the British parliamentary vote last night amused me to no end. Where the #Americants project their freedom-to-be-stupid through the idiocy of the Republican Party (big shout-out to all you a$$holes that still believe both sides do it–cause they don’t) and the dysfunction of government manifest in President Stupid with his piss-hair, the British still hold true to that fcuking accent that only reminds worst-moi why/how there should be so much more hate & bigotry in the world that frees humanity from the abject idiocy of monarchies and hereditary rule. So fcuk-u Brits with your fictional Constitution-Monarchy bull$hit! That Britain is even considered a democracy (in a world where democracy is but a joke) is bad enough. Their Queen krapp and those fcuking weddings that only ripen the rotting blood that is the legacy of King-Kiss-My-Ass…

Brexit is what happens when the flames of populism are fanned while a system of failing-upwards creeks in and around Euro meadows and moats with pitchforks, axes and hoes. And not one of the fools creeping around knows he’s being played, don’t you know. Which raises another question: Even though most Western countries are in a similar political and economic situation as Engaland, why is the incestuous island’s situation so much more vile? Well, here is yet another worst-writer simple answer: While the incestuous island tries to exit the deal because it’s can’t compete (economically), no one is looking at the chasm that has forever existed between Germanic and Anglo pseudo-brethren. That’s right. As it’s always been, Engaland and its powers-that-be are forever afeared of the power of a united continent, especially one united under the guise of Germania and, perhaps, the Franks, Gauls, Celtics, etc., some of which rightfully slaughtered their Monarchs. With that in mind, fcuk-u Citizen Louis Capet! And remember: The last best thing Eurowasteland ever did was get rid of Louis XVI. Now do the same with all the a$$hole monarchs and monarch-followers, for goodness sake. Let humanity live. Or maybe not.

Rant on.

-T

Links that motivated this post:

Something Else About Yellow Vests

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment
Robespierre before getting his jaw blown off along with his head.

Here’s a somewhat limited and underachieving-redneck understanding of the French Revolution1. First. While attempting over the years to read this or that about the Revolution, I learned a while back, to my great disappointment, that Marie Antoinette probably never uttered let them eat cake. Instead an author wrote years before the Revolution something like: “Let them eat Brioche”. Brioche is a funky, fluffy mix between a loaf of bread and a large bun. And if that ain’t disappointing enough…

The second thing learned about the Revolution is that there was a whole bunch of turmoil within it. That is, if I understand it correctly, although the French Revolution has a beginning and an end, what happened between all that ain’t no small task to comprehend. History class has the Revolution starting in the spring and summer of 1789. It then lasted till 1799. After that France gets its own odd looking and well-branded little dictator. Oddly, no one’s compared #Trump too Napoleon yet. Or have they?

Although accredited with being one of the greatest events in all of human history, the French Revolution sometimes shocks me to think that this event doesn’t play a larger role in life today. I mean, is there something French Revolution in yellow vests? I’m kinda doubting there is. Which also begs the question: if the French Revolution was such a significant human event, how come it’s so damn hard to understand? I mean, why aren’t school children taught all about Guillotines? We teach them everything about terror. Or? Who the fcuk is Danton, Robespierre and Jacobins, The Mountain, etc.? Heck, kids today should also be taught what Marie Antoinette’s face looked like as her head was finally, superbly separated from her body and the gushing blood from a still pumping heart filled the stage while the meek watched dreamy-eyed as though fluffy Brioche was losing its fluff. Oh wait. The children are taught instead to admire the disgust of British monarchy in the form of weddings and stuck-up accents galore.

No. Seriously. That monarchies still exist today shocks me.

Nomatter.

“A large part of the media-political world wanted us to believe that violence is not the thousands of lives destroyed and reduced to misery by politics, but a few burnt-out cars. You must really never have experienced poverty, if you think that graffiti on a historic monument is worse than the impossibility of being able to take care of yourself, of living, of feeding yourself or your family.”2

I’m wondering if the current yellow vest movement can be compared to other concurrent movements? The Arab Spring, for example? What about Occupy Wall Street? I mean, you know, compared to the greatest Revolution in history–and, yes, the French Revolution most certainly one-upped the American Revolution. What is the end-game supposed to be in all this revolution stuff? Is there an end-game? As we all know–at least those capable of such a comparison: the American Revolution resulted in nothing but a recreation of the same Europe it tried to rebel against. Or did I miss something in the advent of politics post WW2 + Ronald Reagan that could only devolve into #Trumpism? And since I’m probably waaaaay off subject: what was the point of the American Revolution now that the country is only about maintaining the nothingness of consume-to-survive, pseudo-aristocracy and #Trump‘s hair? But on that note, I do die-grass.

After a bit of contemplation, news review, watching/listening to a few podcasts on the subject, I’m coming to worst-realise that the scariest thing about the yellow-vest turmoil in France is it will, like so many other protests, be all for naught. As soon as I heard Macron was giving in to the protests by dropping the gas tax, increasing minimum wage, not taxing pensions3, etc., I was happy for the protestors. But then I thought: oh my. France, like so many other #Eurowasteland countries, is already on the brink of nation-state financial failure not unlike Italy, Spain, etc. That is, when Macron has France do all he says in order to stop the rioting, it only means that national debt4 issues will explode. It is exactly that type of government activity that keeps the so-called elites in power. Because the elites both profit from debt but also use debt to control finances, this is exactly what they want. It’s also exactly what’s going on in #Trump-land, Brazil w/Bolsonaro, and, of course, Brexit. 

The thing that protesters need to wise-up to is simple: it’s time to finally make the elite pay. Protest and riot, burn the fcuking house down, but do till Macron taxes the $hit out of the elite. Those jerk-wadds have been getting richer and richer off the $hitshow since globalisation began and now, considering how world issues are literally repeating the previous century, I’d say they’re starting to panic. All they need is reason and rhyme and the Great World War scenario begins anew. And we know who will pay for that. 

But what do I know?

Rant on.

-T

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution ↩︎
  2. https://jacobinmag.com/2018/12/france-yellow-vests-gilets-jaunes-austerity-macron ↩︎
  3. https://www.france24.com/en/20181210-macron-france-tax-cuts-raise-wages-speech-yellow-vest-unrest ↩︎
  4. https://thehill.com/opinion/international/421082-macrons-concessions-add-fuel-to-italys-debt-fire ↩︎

May Yellow Vests Save Us All And How I Knew Q&A Website Would Suck It

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment
This is a screenshot from the article linked to below.

(Deep breath:) What’s wrong with journalism is not the fakeness or the fake-newz but how it simply gets things wrong on account those practicing it (journalism) aren’t really journalist but if they are they are journalists of a new era where journalism isn’t the same as it used to be because now those who pay “journalists” don’t want things said or written that would OUT the payers. (Breath.)

Actually, to be honest, the guy that wrote the Buzzfeed article (linked to below) kinda scares me. Here’s why:

“Due to the way algorithm changes made earlier this year interacted with the fierce devotion in France to local and regional identity, the country is now facing some of the worst riots in many years — and in Paris, the worst in half a century.” -Source: some buzzfeed pseudo journalist who doesn’t deserve to be named.

It is matter-of-factly explained (in the whole article) to an obviously imbecilic audience (#Americants?) what’s going on in France because of Facebag. Like most neo-liberals–or those stuck in the lie-of-the-mind of fail-upwards-ness, i.e. compulsive behaviourists, the uncreatives and automatons, generation after generation that has never grown out of the shadows of not only their parents but the ills created by those same parents–try to connect the chaos in Paris with a social-media platform made up of those who don’t know the difference between WWE, reality and the inside of a fresh but empty Cheetos bag. For indeed, don’t you know, dear worst-reader,  Facebag is the best example yet of…

INTERNET FOR STUPID PEOPLE.

People wearing yellow (emergency vests) and doing what all free people should be doing when trying to oppose economic oppression and class-tyranny and corporatism run-amok, is not stupid. In fact, it’s pretty smart. But before I get off subject. 

The buzzfeed article is a well written, well formatted and well structured piece. The only problem is, it adheres to the already established fake narrative about Paris: that people in yellow jackets are burning cars and are somehow unhappy with politics and don’t know what to do with themselves and so…. (Sarcasm off.)  

Btw. Does any of that sound familiar? Other than the various fancy charts in the article, it sounds a lot like what I remember reading about Occupy Wall Street. But what do I know? 

So much for krappy journalism that isn’t exactly fake–it’s just bad journalism. 

Speaking of all-things krappy. 

Is it any coincidence that a krappy company like Quora* even made it this long? I remember when they first started. I gave them a glance and immediately my martian antennae tickled. I knew from the get-go what they were doing couldn’t be good because, well…

In short, a person signed up to Quora submits questions. Others review those questions and where applicable answer those questions. The whole time while that’s going on–this really krappy company thought it could own everything. Nothing new there considering the companies survived the dotcom boom/bust, eh. And here we are in these days of greed-galore. And so. All one has to know about this company that is currently on the verge of (deserved) total failure, is that it was started by former Facebag employees. So I guess it’s no wonder that it also probably orchestrated recent 100m breach of registered user info. I mean, why not orchestrate something like that as part of your fail-upwardness? Donald Trump–the scammer and chief of all fail-upwardness–did the same to become president and he too has the same amount of suckered users. 

Go figure.

Rant on.

-T 

Links:

If Only #Americants Were Willing To Learn How It’s Done

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

I’m forever admiring the French. They are the owners of the last GREAT revolution in all of human history. I mean, am I wrong? Or did the French brilliantly get rid of the uselessness of monarchy? Yeah, baby. Make more useless heads roll–I say. And if the heads don’t roll, the French still know how to protest. Much of the west should learn from their doings. Considering that tax hikes are pretty much the only thing #Eurowasteland greed-leaders can do to deal with the fail-upwardness of #Americant $hitshow capitalism run amok, this is a big deal. My hat is off to yellow jacket wearers everywhere.

Rant on.

-T

PM Edouard Philippe will suspend the measure after weeks of violent protests, he tells MPs.

Source: France fuel protests: PM Philippe to halt fuel tax rise – BBC News

Please: French Revolution V 2.0 But Without The Beheadings (Unless You Must)

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

I suppose in another life I’d be yelling… burn the fcuking place down. But I’m getting to old for that sort of thing. Or am I? Obviously the world is at a tipping point. I’m glad France is leading the way around that point. Reason? Stupid, ugly, disgusting vomit in the form of rich white-people–who have inherited all their wealth and done nothing to earn it–are once again at the antics that their recent ancestors passed on to them. You know, greed galore, tribalism galore, let the pöbel and riffraff go too far protesting austerity and tax increases and then we’ll (stupid rich white people) step in  and either make them all die in a huuuuuge wars–probably wearing helmets in the shape of #Trump’s piss-hair–or just to put them all in the eternal jail of consumer-to-survive hell. You know, as it’s always been done in order to keep greed going. 

Vive la France!

Link that motivated this post: 

  • https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=672714809
  • (Note on this link. This is a great solution to the woes of greed-monger Interwebnet content providers. This is a text only link of an article that is the result of declining NPR’s website from turning me into a product. More on that here.) 

Europe: The Ones Who Do Wrong Are Always Stronger Than The Ones Who Do Right. More Poison Please.

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

lauer and rose sex mongers

How easy is it, dear wort-reader, to go through life doing the easy wrong and thereby avoiding the difficult right? Well, according to #eurowasteland (Europe), it’s even easier. In fact, my beloved #americant isn’t much different. Indeed, these brothers and sisters, these kissing cousins, these inbred westerners–split by an ocean–of nevermore… rule the world with the lusciousness of consume-to-survive pions so willingly ruled by mongers who are the few & far between riding on backs of the less or ill-informed of nothingness, meritlessness and a past of war, greed, abuse, etc.

In my previous post, I thought I could get away with making a connection between the war-mongering scoundrels of #eurowasteland and the greed-mongering sex scandals of (my beloved) #americant. But I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew. Still, I’m leaving the post up. In fact, it’s really the picture that I included with my previous post that I should change. But. In keeping with the stubbornness that has lead to this/my worst-life of being the most successful useless-eater ever, I’m leaving it all in place and adding a little more to it. Basta!

Hence, the pic here probably fits better there. But I–worstwriter–digress.

With that in mind, I still think there is a way to connect the behaviour of war-mongers with that of sex-mongers–the details of which I’ll leave up to the scientists. Just as there is a connection with young men raised by ignorance and knowing only abuse, there is a connection to how #eurowasteland has tried and failed to rid itself of its past, which was/is so blatantly obvious in how it has handled these mock trials over the years after the war of the former Yugoslavia. I mean, come on. Why the hell are these trials even in the public sphere? Or am I the only one that is NOT surprised that a nut job Croat can pull off a Shakespearean death on live TV? Wow. Says a lot about #eurowasteland.

Which brings me to the following worst-conclusion: more poison please.

Rant on.

-T

Excercise(s) In Translation: A Schlampe Is Not A Bitch. Or Is She?

~ Tom ~ 1 Comment

There are moments, dear worst-reader, where I love the German language. There are also moments when I don’t love it. But that’s not what this worst-post is about. Even though I’ve given up studying the language–because I reached a point many years ago where I not only would dream in it but I achieved such advanced forsight in it that I could read German facial expressions, German innuendo, German conspiracy-theory, etc., etc. German had become more than a second language to me. And that scared the living beejeezees out of me.

The thing is/was, as an avid, willing and unabashed Ausländer (foreigner) that reached a high level of language understanding (even though I still can’t write in it), I came to realize that I was NEVER, NEVER, NEVER-ever gonna be… A GERMAN.

And so.

There are times/moments, for shits & giggles, I open my first edition, original paperback of Das Capital and give it another go. (That’s right. Wanna know what it is to be German? Read Marx.) It doesn’t take long before I’m once again frustrated–and not only at Capitalism and the families that own all German businesses–but at the fact that I would never, never, never-ever be… one of them. Nomatter what I read, nomatter where the language takes me, nomatter how many of its women I have, all I hear when Marx or a German news broadcaster or a German actor says anything, is this:

Deutschland … Den … Deutschen … Ausländer … Raus!

Germany is for Germans and foreigners should leave.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that I could barely save myself (from more shits & giggles) as Margot Honecker’s step-daugther, Angie Merkel, started letting refugees into Germany as though there’s no tomorrow. And don’t get me wrong, dear worst-reader. It’s not that I’m against helping others or helping those in need. War refugees, especially from wars-for-oil that the West has been fighting and profiting from since 9/11, do deserve our help. But what are these people supposed to do that come into Germany under such pretence? Wait. Do you see that can of worms I just opened, dear worst-reader?

Nomatter.

Not unlike the grandparents of North Africans that jumped the Colony-train and made their way to France, 21st century war-for-oil refugees will never integrate into German (European!) society. And before things get too out of hand with all this worst-writing, that lack of integration has nothing to do with religion. In white northern Europe (and white wannabe rest of Europe), dark skinned people are out of luck and out of power. That’s just the way it is. If I’ve learned anything since living the past quarter century in #eurowasteland, it’s how tribalism and racism can turn the collective into a fucking madhouse where the cheese and cured ham and white spargel in spring-time taste unbelievably delicious. Whooop-di-fucking-doo!

But I’m off subject. Again.

I wanted to worst-write today about the German language and not how the Germans so naively circumvent their world power by seperating their greed functioning economy from their greedier dysfunctioning a-social politics/society. Part of this discrepency lies within the German language. Ever heard the story that during America’s founding the founding fathers debated what the country’s standard language should be? Well, indeed, German was at the top of the list. But do you know why they didn’t/couldn’t pick German as America’s language? I think it was Ben Franklin that summed it up best.

“Those Germans are seedy and their language makes them so.”

-worst-writer paraphrse of Ben Franklin

It’s no coincidence that Germans aren’t funny, btw. Their language just doesn’t allow humour–at least not without great effort on the part of any drunken audience. German, unless you understand  the context, can be very vague and imprecise–unless, of course, it’s used to build things, to govern things, to write Das Capital and thereby invent authoritarian communism. Oh yeah, and there’s Germans and their elbow-attached beer halls! But let’s not get too lingui-sticky here. (Linquistics and sticky? No? Move on.)

Anywho. Let’s cut to the chase. Below are two screenshots from online news sources that I frequent. Here one can clearly see the confusion there is for those struggling to grasp the German language.

nazi slut
Typo correction, red-line, from moi.

Still, although not funny, German can be fun. One of my favorite German words is Schwer. In English it means both difficult and heavy. Although that’s not a very fun German word, try this one: “Schlampe”. Now that’s a fun German word–especially after you’ve had so many German women, been married to them numerous times, you mother is one and, well, let’s face it, you’re a bit of masochist.

The word Schlampe means many things in English. Here’s a short list:

  • Slut
  • Hussy
  • Trollip
  • The chick that has that “fuck me” look on her face
  • Hot but not marriage material
  • Untidy
  • Lazy
  • Gluttonous
  • Sloth (which I believe is where the word stems from as it was initially used by Indo-Germanic tribes as they hauled off their women by the hair into caves)
  • And last but not least: Sloppy

nazi bitch wrong translation

Indeed. One word can mean many things–depending on the context inwhich it is used. And so. With so many ways to translate something, I really, really hate it when the German language gets abused to the point where those NOT in the know mistranslate it and thereby spread misinformation–potentially hurting not only the language but human communcation.

The one word that Schlampe does NOT translate to is: Bitch.

Again. For posterity’s sake.

A Schlampe is not a Bitch.

Even in German… A Bitch is a Bitch. Woof. Woof.

Or something like that.

Rant on.

-t

This Thing I Call French Love

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

I love the French. Although having grown up in a world that gives rise to to the likes of #Trump, ever since I got somewhat of a grasp of history, I’ve always had this thing for the French. Obviously it’s never bothered me what happened in the WW2, especially when one considers what happened in WW1. (If you don’t know what I’m referring to then just ask any American white male from any “red” state that was born before 1970 what he thinks of the French.) Besides being fascinated by Napoleon’s Egypt campaign–my goodness, the man wasn’t even thirty years old then–he means nothing in comparison to what I really, really love about the French. And so. Are you ready for it, dear worst-reader?

Up till today I’ve loved the French for one thing and one thing only. But this morning that changed. I never knew that the French had a law that prohibits media coverage 48 hours prior to the start and finish of a national election.

What a great f’n idear.

The French actually have a law that tries to at least curb some of what makes humanity so f’n stupid and also might be of some use regarding Putin’s lust for ruining the West. In fact, any other country with a half-bit more brains should probably implement the same thing, if not adding a few more hours to it. But we know how it is these days trying to find a country with brains, eh. For you see, dear worst-reader, from what I’ve read so far, the same group of Russians that hacked the Democratic National Committee last summer, thereby ending my relationship with that party, and also ruining Hillary at the same time, just hacked Macron. But the news can’t publish anything about it.

God I love the French!

Obviously, for Hillary, things were different with her and the DNC hack. I mean, those damn DNC emails really hurt her but they were in the news and thereby fodder for bathsh*t republicans for months prior to the election. Free speech is a bitch! Does this mean, even though the Russian hackers are pretty damn good, they didn’t do all their research about how the French govern their elections? Indeed.

Yeah, let’s hope Authoritarians the world over won’t be able to rejoice with the election of France’s fascist party which will most surely lead to the demise of #eurowasteland. Yeah, let’s hope.

Oh yeah. Almost forgot. The #1 reason I love the French.

The f’n French Revolution. The way they got rid of a useless monarchy… As far as I’m concerned, that was/is one of the greatest human achievements ever. It’s unfortunate that so many other countries still adhere to that krapp. Yeah, real unfortunate.

Ran on.

-T

The Lie Of The #Eurowasteland Mind

~ Tom

Scream no fear all worst

When I moved to the Germania tribe of the EU in 1989, just before the Berlin Wall fell, money was all-kinda confused and at border crossings, especially to Holland, guards still checked my baggage for drugs. Was I relieved when the money got simple and I didn’t have to worry about them finding a few ounces of hash packed in coffee grounds in my backpack? Hell yea. But that’s about the only good that has come out of the European experiment. The thing is, I was always a Euro skeptic–hence my failed attempt at trade-marking “#eurowasteland”.

I even used to try and converse with Europeans about their future. The question I would ask was simple. Are you German/French/Dutch, etc., or are you European? The question threw a few people off. But in the end the answers were all the same. After pondering their heritage, their language, the cheese they eat and the bread they suck on, they all eventually said, “I’m European but…” The EU is and has been bound to fail–especially as the world comes to terms with the boil & toil it’s gotten itself into in the last twenty or so years. I mean, come on, we are at the beginning of WW3, or? With that in mind, let’s go down Tommi’s little worst-list of what makes the EU… the fucking EU.

  • Although its history and planning goes back much further, the EU really started at the fall of communism. Since communism is, literally, a European thing, how would/could a united Europe orient itself politically if one of its greatest inventions failed so miserably?
  • A single government in Brussel was/is mistake number one. The EU is all about the turmoil and chaos of tribalism. Add to that the bullsh*t of church, monarchies and so so so many people that really, truly believe that they sh*t roses… (Just go to any major EU city and watch the people that live and work there. They all also think they shit Marie Antoinette cake.)
  • The idea of a united Europe based on the United States was a mistake from the get-go since the US was founded by people who ran from the political and social chaos that houses both monarchies, pseudo-communism and the single greatest scam in human history: the fucking Vatican. (Keep in mind that all countries of the EU are centrally controlled states whose economies are dependent on the wills and thrills of banks and churches THAT ARE STATELESS.)
  • Like all pseudo-democratically elected governments (the EU parliament is not democratically elected–they are appointed!), Brussel failed to provide even an ounce of truth to its minions about what it’s really up to. Like any other pseudo-capitalist entity it can only do what a bank allows it to do. This is why countries like Greece and now the UK have to face reality harder than countries like Germany. While the EU parliament was playing around with the lie of governing and political representation the world has been, literally, falling apart over oil and cheap labour. That level of falling apart is easy to hide when you have (almost) free health care, half decent transportation infrastructure (except for Köln, of course) and a system of socialism painted the colours of a rainbow. All of this is perfect for rekindling old tribal ways.
  • That the EU even partook in bailing out Greece is a fucking joke on a grand scale and, not ironically, the catalyst for the UK’s current reaction to this mess. And, btw, Greece had two similar mandate elections regarding its position in the EU–which is ultimately what Greece voted for. The UK has just had it first mandate election. Gee, when’s the next one coming–or hasn’t the queen decided yet? All of this means that as far as banks are concerned, the UK is no different than Greece. The moronic working classes that eat their own shit will never fully understand what’s really going on here.
  • The EU invented “austerity”. Austerity is the reason that kings and queens and socialists (i.e. pseudo communists) exist. Well, that and “belief” in spaghetti monsters traversing the universe in teapots made of unicorn shit. What’s happening to the world right now in the form of economic austerity mixed with globalisation is payback by the ghosts of (19th century) aristocrats that all lost their shirts when people rose up to demand human rights. And so. The biggest problem the world has today is that all those people that rose up against the capitalists pigs of the early 20th century, all died off and left nothing behind. Indeed. Smart people don’t breed! Yeah, baby. The robber baron comeback is done.
  • Everybody with half a mind should be following The Donald right now. Nothing better exemplifies the mindset that has lead to the EU problem (and #americants problems) than Donald J. Trump. I mean, let’s face it, Trump is from another failed European experiment best known as the grand united mistakes of #americant. While a closed class of pseudo aristocrats run all the businesses in the world (of which The Donald is not one!) in collusion with banks (another class in and of itself) where a few people are allowed to suck the teat of it all (which is where The Donald is really from), the only thing left is to watch reality TV (which is also a European invention) and hope for the best.

But I digress.

The EU failed from the get-go because Europe and Europeans have only given two things to human history. One is communism and the other is monarchies that can’t but should die.

Good luck suckers.

Rant on.

Links that motivated this post:

Another Do-It-Right Check For #Eurowasteland

~ Tom

capitalism_not_quite

Aaron Swartz would be proud? The only problem is, what would make him proud ain’t happening where it should be happening. I mean, who cares about #eurowasteland anyways? Nothing comes out of #eurowasteland except new fangled ways of implementing centralised government and nifty ways to tax the sh*t out of people. On the other hand, while #americant continues down its path of Darwinian greed mongering, literally turning society into a cesspool of Mad Max movie extras elbowing each other in the eyes, #eurowasteland, every once-a-once, does throw a glistening light of hope into the ether of worldly greed. Yet, in the context of information being free, worst-writer has this question:

How do you differentiate between what is publicly funded vs what is privately funded?

Which raises another question.

If privately funded research results in discoveries that benefit society, shouldn’t that research also be freely available?

The problem in both the US and Europe is that conservative, neoliberal politics has so successfully merged public (government) with private (corporate) interests that information has become a commodity, informing has become a privilege and Mickey Mouse is the ultimate form of evil because, well, its copyright will never die. It’s a really good thing that #eurowasteland at least attempts to free information from the tyranny of greed, although I doubt this will make much difference in the end. Stupid will always be freer than… But I digress.

Rant on.

-Tommi

Link that lead to this post:

Boardroom Gender Quotas vs Cologne On New Year's Eve vs The Meaning Of Freiwild

~ Tom

what is freiwild.png
Left: a band. Right: police making sure no one enters the church.

What a grand opportunity Germania has right now. Will it act on this opportunity? Of course not. And why not? Well, the answer is simple. There’s no money or taxes to be had in acting on a human failing that, up to now, cannot be made financially exploitable for the centralised state. Misogyny and (mafia) patriarchy are fundamental to the Germania lie–the lie of a social-market-economy. I suppose one can give Germania credit for at least trying. The land of wurst, kraut, autobahns that require drivers of awesome cars to drive all the time with their brakes and cleavage did pass a law last year that requires the centralised corpo-state to add females to its roster of corpo-managers. The idear of actually having some female corpo-leadership is, indeed, a fine one. The problem, though, is that requiring females to be corpo-state-managers means that you first have to have conditioned females that can actually do it. I mean, “conditioned” is the only way to get ahead in a corpo-state, in a centralised economy, among automaton comrades that all must share elbows and cubicles–aka the western (white) world. That would also mean, since most Germania females aren’t all that interested in engineering or banking, the corpo-state would have to do more than just provide tampons in advisory board bathrooms to get Germania females to actually do it. Germania simply doesn’t have enough females that think like the males that have made the country what it is today. And so. As the saying goes: Germans aren’t funny… but some of the laws they make are. Which brings me to the article below. Germany enacted a law last year that is supposed to help change the German mindset–that got the country to where it is today. Ist das dein ernst (are you serious), asked the one-eyed, red-haired pirate born and reared in Saxony. Du spinnst (you’re an idiot) responds his Westphalia rival. Both men tap the bottom of their Kölsch glasses, kiss with their eyes, and sing Kölle Alaaf in front of an audience that doesn’t know which way to sway or get out of the arm-lock they are in. Indeed. §I couldn’t help but snicker as I read the article below. Nomatter what the subject, nomatter what the issue in Germania today, it all boils down to one thing and one thing only: Money. And so. There are two mindsets in the western world battling over (Kölle Alaaf and) money.  On the Anglo side that fight evolves around this: it’s all mine and you can’t have any, i.e. the haves and the have-mores. On the Germania side of doing things the fight evolves around this: it’s all mine and you’ll get what I feel like giving you when I’m ready and my tax revenue allows it. Yeah, baby. Long live centralised, pseudo-communist states faking it (the economy and capitalism) like a drag queen selling out for a drinki-poo. And since I’m on the subject of drag queens. What about Freiwild. It’s all over the place right now. I suppose a naked supermodel with a protest poster in front of the Cologne Cathedral helps spread the word. But to be honest, I had to do a double-take on the word because I hadn’t used it in such a long time. It means something like “fair game”. But I suppose in the context of what’s currently going on in Germania, especially old Colonia, it means something much more specific. And to be honest, one of the reasons you have words like Freiwild means that you also have words like Karnevalsflüchtlinge. Karnevalsflüchtlinge is a word that describes all the people that leave Germania because they fear all the touchy-feely that comes with a corpo-centralised, mafia-patriarchy state that MUST party when the bell rings–which is all that Karneval is these days. Well, it’s that and lots of drinking. But I digress. As I worst-wrote at the beginning of this post: Germania faces a grand opportunity right now. I wonder what it will do with it. Prosit! Alaaf! Maach et joot! Rant on. -Tommi

Source: Boardroom Quotas: The Slow Pace of Gender Equality in Corporate Germany – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Madness Says You're Welcome

~ Tom

the madness gun

Two worst-news issues this morn, dear worst-reader: gun control and privacy. What do these two issues have in common? Well, my guess is… Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Or? While reading through the hysteria that is the byproduct of madness on a scale never before seen, I couldn’t help but find some irony in these two stories. With that in mind. Let’s go there, shall we. § First. President Barry O asked the “media” to talk about America’s gun problem. Thankfully the media reacted. The graphs and charts are kinda mind-boggling. Of course the only thing I get out of them all is the WOW factor. Wow, I had no idear that so many people were killed by so many different methods. There’s car crashes. Doctor malpractice. Breast cancer. Suicide. And then there’s the best method of all: terrorism. Of course, it need not be mentioned that Barry O kinda opened the flood gates on that one. I mean, the US is spending trillions on fighting terrorists. In that fight we have so far slaughtered millions. How then can anyone expect the US to spend money on fighting the rampant gun deaths at home? It just doesn’t make any sense. Yet Obama’s recent call to “talk” about the gun problem might pay off. But to what end? Remember, dear worst-reader, it’s not so much the gun lobby (NRA) as much as it is years and years of conservative and batshit politicking that has brought the country to the brink. I mean. Come on. What is supposed to happen when a Democrat president calls for action on guns? I refer you to the supreme court case District of Columbia v. Heller. This case basically guarantees gun ownership under the 2nd Amendment—even though the amendment was written during times of muskets and includes “provisioner writ” regarding a well organised militia. The supreme court ruling also guarantees that you can own any gun you want–even really, really, really big and fast guns. So, again, what is supposed to happen when the president calls on the media to show a country of morons that…. shit happens? Oh yeah, we get to see graphs and charts and numbers. Of course, let there be no discourse regarding the demise of a country’s infrastructure—and I’m not referring to roads and bridges—where psychopaths, who obviously belong in psychiatric care, are instead faced with making pharmaceutical companies huge profits and then living in basements where it’s gun playtime. Obviously some form of gun control is on its way. But how that’s gonna happen with the current supreme court is a mystery to me. Keep in mind, the only supremes up for retirement are liberal ones. If people are serious about gun control then partaking in who nominates and approves of supremes should also be considered. It’ll be a long, arduous road, indeed. § Nomatter. § Let’s move on to European privacy, shall we. But before we do that, let’s set the mood. Say it thus: privasee. That’s how the British say it. Go ahead a repeat it a few times. Feels good coming off the tongue, don’t it? § What’s interesting about privasee and the recent EU ruling protecting it is how it relates to Edward Snowden. Without Snowden’s leaks the EU would have let all this slide, i.e. the moving and collection of private data from the EU to the US. Although I’m a skeptic regarding Snowden–that is, I just don’t think the info he released is very interesting because it’s more about the How and not the What regarding US spying–it seems as though the after-effect of what he’s done is starting to shine—at least in Europe. Europeans are really pissed off at the US about spying. It’s almost as though every frickin’ European has forgotten about the cold war (which spying helped to end) but still remembers the devastation of the great war (WWI+II) where they really learned how to spy on each other. Remember, Europe pretty much gave humanity industrialisation and with it the lust/need of espionage. Because Europe’s antiquated privasee laws are much stricter than in the US it’s only natural that Europeans react in this manner. Or? I suppose it doesn’t hurt matters very much that every European country has its own IP domain (e.g. .de, .es, .fr, .uk, etc.). Why doesn’t the US differentiate its states in this manner? Without using stealth proxies or any other IP trickery, digital content from Belgium or Spain can be easily traced but only within the parameters of EU law. I’m sure that plays a role whether or not US tech companies maintain EU data in the US. But in the end that doesn’t really matter because, well, the EU is just pissed off at the fact that US companies think they can horde everything and, when asked, turn it all over to the government. And that’s all fine and good. But it leads to a question. § “But, dear worst-writer, what does EU privasee law have to do with US gun law?” Well, like I alluded to above, probably nothing. On the other hand, I’ve been more interested in learning about Edward Snowden’s motivations more than anything else. I’m also curious as to why so little information is given to us about who these “mass shooters” really are–and who the hell is Edward Snowden? Is there information out there that someone or some entity doesn’t want to be public? Who are these people? Where do they really come from? What drugs are making them extra crazy? Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to cloud or discredit the issues here (privacy and gun control). But I do recall an interview with Snowden’s father that revealed an atypical mindset of these times, that of a government hating, gun totting, Amurikan. Yes. Indeed. The riff-raff wannabes are all having their time in the limelight. Some of them murder, other’s find refuge in Russia. Either way, the place many others call home continues to spiral into a frenzy of madness. § Good luck suckers. Rant on. -tommi

Links that motivated this post:

Und Der Fährt Immer Noch

~ Tom

vw no diesel in america

There is a scene in the satirical movie “Schtonk” where it’s said that Adolf Hitler claimed in his diaries that he invented the Käfer. You know, that cute little German car known as the beetle or bug–not the new plastic krapp copy they’ve got now. And not only did he invent the original bug, but he also invented the company that would make the car: Volkswagen. The people’s car. Fittingly, someone adds later in the film: “And it’s still on the road”–Und der fährt immer noch. The implication is that the car was built so well that it will drive forever. I guess. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Schtonk! is based on a true story. It is about a bunch of gaudy, slimy, yellow journalists who think they have found the Hitler Diaries. As is the case in the true story, it’s all nothing more than a grand hoax. But that hoax had a bit more to it than what we see in the film. One of the reasons Stern magazine was so easily manipulated into this hoax was the fact that Germans were starving for some sort of inner reconciliation regarding their recent past. In the movie the top manager of the magazine that was financing the acquisition of the diaries even says, after hearing the first words that Hitler (supposedly) wrote: “We’ll have to re-write German history, this is sensational, this means that he (Hitler) was a person like you and me.” Indeed. A privileged corporatist claims that a past can be changed as long as a new future can be arranged. Or something like that.

The gaudy, slimy, yellow journalists in Schtonk! are no different than the gaudy, slimy, yellow managers that run corporations today. For it is true, dear worst-reader, that the only way to get by in a world where monopolies and oligarchies and plutocrats rule everything is by hoaxing and manipulating and cheating–and arranging new futures. This is the true face of unabashed, predatory capitalism that is drowning us all. And not just drowning all of us minions. Some of the corporations have to drown, too. But only some.

What is the difference between a car made in Germany or a car made in the US? Sure, there are quality differences, maybe even one will last a bit longer than the other. But all in all, they are the same. So how then do you make money if there is nothing to differentiate your product from the next product? Or what do you do if there is no more money out there to buy products? Indeed. You arrange things. In the end, it’s all just corporate bullshit–that has been arranged. With that in mind…

Diesel vs gas = gas wins (in the US)

According to one of the articles I read, 20% of all diesel passenger cars sold in the US are made by VW. That’s fucking huge. Reason? Diesel cars get great mileage–and that whole obsession-thing America has with Germans doesn’t hurt either. Can you say Fahrvergnügen? On the other hand, gas mileage is kinda important to Americans these days, even though Americans don’t really know anything about gas. They most certainly can’t understand why the stuff is such a huge determining factor in their living standard. Seriously. They don’t get it. The wars, empire, failed Texas oilmen elected (twice) to the land’s highest office. Nor can Americans understand that all the money they pay for gasoline, thereby deminishing living standards, goes into the coffers of a few people. That means there are a few gas company execs out there ranting and raving about slimy Europeans encroaching on their turf. And who do the gas companies collude with? Again. A significant # of diesel passenger cars on US roads are made by Europeans. Did no one tell those Europeans that America is gasoline? Diesel is European. And you know what Americans think of the French, right? Freedom fries, baby!

Supply vs demand = supply loses.

They call them recessions and not depressions because the latter is so definitive. They also use the word recession because inherent in the word is the idear of recovery. The western world and the concept of a living standard that permeates it has yet to deal with the fact that there is no difference between depression and recession if there is no recovery. The whole point of Too Big To Fail and bailouts is that corporations don’t have to actually answer to the market. Instead they keep on supplying, i.e. manufacturing, producing, etc., as though nothing has happened. The problem is, there is no such thing as the market. There’s only “growth” which feeds stock prices and open lines of credit. With that in mind, my guess is that VW has simply over-produced. Since there is no recovery insight from this recession (depression) something has to be done with all those unsold cars. But it can’t come out that America’s favourite diesel motor can’t be sold on account there’s no money to buy them. What would Ford or Chrysler say about why their cars are not being bought either? Oh, yeah. They’re all in the same boat.

When multinationals get into trouble this is what they do. They pretend something went wrong. They claim foul from government regulation or foul against a competitor. Or they get government regulators to claim foul against them. They make crony politicians do them favours. Some even hire universities (via grants) to do a study about, gee, I don’t know, …emissions. Next there might even be a study about tire pressures. Are tire manufacturers in dire straits?

Just look at GM’s recent debacle. Didn’t Toyota recently recall a shit load of cars? Does any of this sound familiar? These companies are allowed to get away with what ever they want. They simply push the burden of being unmanageable elsewhere. It’s the slimy, gaudy, yellow thing to do. They arrange (their) futures.

Rant on. -Tommi

Links that motivated this post:

Notes From Underhuman

~ Tom

underground dostoyevsky

Thoughts this morn about Dostoyevsky’s Notes From Underground. I’ve been enjoying the taste, feel and smell of this 1972 paperback for the past few weeks. I think I acquired it while visiting London in 1995. Obviously it’s not dealing with age and dryness but neither am I. Funny thing is, I’ve already gone through three or four rubber-bands to keep it together. Looks like I won’t be reading The Double anytime soon. Oh well.

To begin, here’s the intro from the author where he, for whatever (literary) reason, feels the need to qualify his work.

“The author of these Notes, and the Notes themselves, are both, of course, imaginary. All the same, if we take into consideration the conditions that have shaped our society, people like the writer not only may, but must, exist in that society. I have tried to present to the public in a more striking from than is usual a character belonging to the very recent past, a representative figure from a generation still surviving. In the chapter entitled ‘The Underground’ this personage introduces himself and his outlook on life, and tries, as it were, to elucidate the causes that brought about, inevitably brought about, his appearance in our midst. In the second section we follow this personage’s memoirs of some of the happenings in his life.” -Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What’s the saying about Russian novels? If you’re happy–don’t read one. As far as this worst-reader goes, since happiness is over-rated, you’d think the likes of Dostoyevsky would be for me. But the truth is, after reading The Idiot so many years ago, I’ve spent more time staring at my old copy of The Brothers Karamazov than reading it. (Ok. I’ve read parts of it and plan on reading it whole. Someday. Maybe.) Like most of Dostoyevsky’s work, the biggest hurdle is not his subject matter or its depth but instead the winded, drivelling, unending sentences, not excluding multiple page single paragraphs. I mean, come on, you gotta be smart to read this guy–or?

When I can get through the sentences, two things happen (in my worst-mind) while doing so. First. If aliens ever come down to visit and they want to know what it is to be human, they should read Dostoyevsky (or Gogol). Second. After Dostoyevsky, and living in #eurowasteland for so long, I’ve concluded that no one knows The European better than the big D. Yeah, baby. That’s right. The only way to understand The European is to read depressing Russian novels of yesteryore. And what is The European, you ask. How ’bout this. Bureaucracy. Greed. War. Clans. Fascism. Authoritarianism. Genocide. Etc., etc. All the industry, farmers, cheese, booze, classical music, cars, art and architecture, theatre, etc., etc., pale in comparison  to the death, destruction and human waste The European has given humanity. Seriously. All of the world’s problems stem out of the inhumane death and greed culture that is The European. And before you attack me regarding America–heed this. America is not just bluejeans and Hollywood, war and money, different kinds of cheese, art and fascism, and let’s not forget, the new world and the land of the free (to be stupid). That’s just a front, a story, a narrative. America is The European thru and thru. In fact, it is The European version 2.0. Did I mention how we all need to be so thankful to The European for imperialism?

It was/is The European mindset that slaughtered the Indians of North America. It was that mindset that fought the silly clan war known as the American Civil War, igniting it all because The European needed slaves to build its new world. It was that mindset that perverted capitalism and turned the northern hemisphere into a cult of self perpetuating greed and death. Indeed, dear worst-reader. When I read Dostoyevsky that’s what I get out of his writing. And it feels kinda good to read it these days, as though something inside me is vindicated, as though, after all these years in Europe, among these The Europeans, I can finally read him. Yeah. Maybe it is time to get on with Karamazov. Or maybe not.

Notes From the Underground is short novel about the narrator who can’t control his anger and frustration while trying to exist in the blossoming automaton world of late 19th century (far eastern) Europe. I’ve read on the Interwebnets that some think this work is the beginning of existentialism–but I have no idear what that is supposed to mean. All I know is, if you could bring the narrator of this story to life, you could put him right in the middle of the corporate world; he’d fit perfectly. Even though there is a huge amount of anger and confusion rolled up inside him, he is docile and weak on the outside; he seems to stand for nothing except musings about Russian soil. His ego is so overblown that when he argues with comrades and ends up challenging one to a duel, no one even shows up for it. Instead they all go about their meaningless, automaton lives in the(ir) bureaucracies, the(ir) cafés, the(ir) dinning halls of sloth and gluttony. And just like the automatons in the corporate world, the narrator  himself is fluff and meaninglessness–all on the verge of sissy tears–just like all those soccer “men” who fall down on the field like gurly-girls in order to find an advantage. Yet, does the narrator find meaning in his search? The question hasn’t changed since the late 19th century. The automatons find meaning in what ever they deem fit. They find it in their arrogance. They find it in that other great European pastime that is the opposite of humility–misbegotten pride. They find it in their nationalism, tribalism, clans.

The earth knows no noses higher than those noses in Europe. (-tommi)

This is a quaint story to read. I rather enjoyed it–long sentences or not. I felt a kinship with the narrator–or was it empathy? Nomatter. The important thing to keep in mind about it is that there is contempt between “the author of these notes” and “the notes themselves” (see quote at beginning of post). Dostoyevsky is obviously extremely judgemental of his surroundings yet he never quite reveals why. There is something naive about how he writes this. Or maybe it’s carelessness. I don’t mean his prose, though. His ability to transcribe the mind’s eye is flawless. It’s just the subject matter he’s addressing that gets me. It’s as though he created the narrater in order to just mock everything about the world he’s forced to live in–The European world. Either way he is judging society by portraying its components and how they interact in the most banal of all settings.

“We Russians, generally speaking, have never been stupid transcendental romantics of the German, or especially the French, kind, who are not affected by anything; the earth may crack under their feet, all France may perish on the barricades, but they remain the same, they won’t make the slightest change even for the sake of decency, but still go on singing their transcendental hymns right up, one might say, to the grave, because they are fools. But here, on Russian soil, there are not fools, as everybody knows: that is what distinguishes us from all the other, Germanic, countries.” -Notes From Underground, FD

There is something eerily profound about what Dostoyevsky is getting at in this short novel–that I may be confusing with my own worst-prejudices. And. As usual. I’m not sure I understand any of anything I read. But he makes me think of the wave of revolution that preoccupied Europe before and after Dostoyevsky. Before Dostoyevsky I’m referring, of course, to the French Revolution. In its essence wasn’t the French Revolution not just an attempt break the chains of feudalism and monarchy, but also an attempt to subvert The European? In a lesser attempt, the Russian revolution–which emulated the French–tried to do the same thing. Is there no irony in the fact that both those revolutions lost and who was the winner? In Russia, The European turned to authoritarian communism embodied by Stalin and the Soviets. In western Europe, The European turned to predatory capitalism disguised in the bullshit called socialism. I couldn’t help but feel that Dostoyevsky was alluding to this level of human failure that could only come from the mindset that is The European. The people he argued with, the female he so clumsily fell in love with, the servant he couldn’t stand up to, etc. They all represent The European. And like all Europeans, the story just reaches the last page. Or something like that.

Rant on. -Tommi

Fire Sale

~ Tom

hellenic rep dev fun website horse racing
Screenshot taken from http://www.hradf.com/en (see date of post) featuring sale of horse racing track. Yeah, selling this will save Eurowasteland. Posting pic because site might not last long. Or?

Still giggling about Greece? Yeah, me too. Yet there is something sobering about the whole (or)deal. Or is there something drunken-ing about it? Nomatter. Alexis Tsipras has recently announced he wants another–ANOTHER–vote. This time, though, he wants a vote not on his policies but on him. Which obviously makes sense since the Greeks can probably forget owning their country, thanks to Mr. Tsipras. Or, better yet, thanks to various leaders from its most recent past. Yes. Greece has most definitely gotten itself into a pickle. Not unlike a Vegas addict. Or perhaps Greece is a drunkard. Too much financialization over-kill, anyone? And so. In order for Greece to pay off the debts it has accumulated (from its addiction(s)), it has to sell assets. And. It’s not as though Greece hasn’t tried to sell assets before. But there is the issue that fate seems to have a dicey sense of humour when it comes to either people or countries that can’t control themselves at the poker table–or at the bar. With that in mind. Let’s pull the Hitler card–or, better, let’s just consider the pics of Angela Merkel with that moustache. A fitting picture (image) indeed as, it seems, Germany is now the proud owner of… Greece’s airports? Ok. I know. “Owner” is probably not the proper word. Remember there are Euro-lawyers and media moguls at work here. Germany is the operator of the company that will run Greece’s regional airports. Which might be a good thing if one forgets about Frankfurt and Berlin airports. I mean, most German airports are run pretty well–on account they’re over-kill–that is, Germany doesn’t need half the airports it has. But at least the smaller ones are clean. Planes have places to park. There’s lots of traveler amenities–even though no one can afford to buy the krapp they’re trying to sell behind all that glass. But here’s the thing. Guess who owns a majority stake in the company that now will run Greece’s airports? No. It’s not some private company in the hands of German business moguls a’la Donald Trump. No. In fact, the German state owns the largest financial stake in that company. And that’s not all. Guess who will now take over telecom broadband service for Greece? If you guessed Germany without knowing what the German company name is, that’s fine. The name of the company doesn’t matter. Remember and heed this: there is no privacy in Germany and there is nothing private in Germany either. Germany is, if one looks deep enough, the last bastion of successful communism in the west. It’s only rival is China–except for the simple fact that China does have to (still) repress a huge portion of its society and Germany’s portion of repression is much, much smaller. Anywho. The majority stake in the German company that is buying up (what are ultimately very profitable businesses in Greece) is the German state itself–and up to now no one else could buy them. Am I the only one to find that strange? If you like you may call the company behind the telecom purchase Deutsche Telekom but it suffices to also just call it the German State Company. And the twists don’t stop there. Greece has been trying to “fire sale” assets for years. Just google greek fire sale. They were unable to sell most stuff they put on the block. Reason? I have no clue. But my worst-guess is this: there was too much nouveau riche money after the fall of communism and during the initial stages of the Euro that (just to happened to) find its way into Greece. Again. One only has to consider how Greece was able to hide all its debts over the years. But then again. I don’t really want to know who invested in Greece and who lost what on those investments in the last twenty or so years that built all the krapp that will now be sold to Germany. But I am curious regarding who buys all or any of those islands. Indeed. Good luck suckers. Rant on. -t

Links that motivated this (worst-comment) post:

Channeling Their Sex: Bernie Sanders and Eurowasteland's Greece

~ Tom

Can I join these two, dear worst-reader? Varoufakis and Bernie Sanders? One minute I’m watching the Greek finance minister (vid) slime up his (and his country’s) parts, prepping it for penetration, and the next minute I’m reading about a “socialist” politician running for POTUS that might actually get a few votes if it weren’t for what he wrote about sex back in 1972. Or maybe not. (Short pause.)

First. Bernie Sanders. I read the MotherJones article (link below) and the sixties influenced, nineteen-seventy-two sex article they found. Not once while reading both did I feel what obviously right-wingers feel when/if they (ever) read about sex. I mean, come on. I grew up with sexually repressed right-wingers. Combine that with a perverted sense of right and wrong and it’s no wonder that #americant conservatives are jumping through their hola-hoops regarding Bernie Sanders as though he were having sex with their/his second cousin. All for naught, of course.

Second. Yanis Varoufakis, Greece Finance Minister. The recent speech he gave in Germany regarding the forever soap-opera that is the Euro’s financial demise baffled me to no end. More on that here. I couldn’t believe what I was watching/hearing–even though I’ve been living in #eurowasteland for most of my adult life—and I have seen pornography and had bad sex. Indeed. I’ll never be able to shed my #americant upbringing—especially when I watch pornography (for empirical, scientific study, of course). In fact, I have learned to hang on to my upbringing as best I can. In this place, #eurowasteland, where it’s all about two things and two things only—pornography and taxes—holding on to my upbringing is the only thing that allows me to see through all the slime-ball #eurowastelanders like Varoufakis and his German counterparts.

Sexed 1. There are other ways to put it. But I’ll keep it at this for right now. Who is being sexed, dear worst-reader? The 4th Estate recently dug up Bernie Sanders 1972 article where he attempts to write—for lack of having something better to write in the wake of feminism, I guess—about sex. It’s quite a slimy article, if you ask me. But after reading it, I’m glad comrade Sanders wrote it. It was/is quite good and I think I get what he was trying to get at. Chalk one up for Bernie!

Sexed 2. There is only one way to put it. Varoufakis, on the other hand, is doing his best car-salesman impression—a car salesman that probably has three or four stolen teenage girls in his Belgium basement—in order to beg his owners (the banks not the Germans) from making him do what no other politician has been able to do so far: either allow yourself to be sexed or pay-up you fucking scumbag! Chalk one up for slime balls the world over!

Quote 1:

“There are no ‘human’ oppressors. Oppressors have lost their humanity.” -Bernie Sanders

Quote 2:

“History does seem to have a flare for farce judging by the way it sometimes repeats itself. The cold war did not begin here in Berlin. It began in the streets of Athens in the summer of 1944. The Euro-crisis also started life in Athens in 2010 triggered off by Greece’s debt problems. Greece was by a twist of fate the birth place of the cold war and the Euro-crisis. But the causes for both ran much wider than the streets of Athens.” -Yanis Varoufakis

The two quotes above exemplify the reality and/or seriousness of what is ultimately an attempt at saying something that is… I don’t know what it is. Yet I can’t help but feel that that something (that is trying to be said) is seriously awry in both. Sanders is trying to convey a message regarding the fight the human female must constantly face because she is the child bearer and can’t lift a car and it’s still being said long after nineteen-seventy-two. And Varoufakis conveys the reality that #eurowasteland has nothing left to give humanity because it gave all it can give in the form of slime balls who would sell their mothers for a basement vacation in Mallorca.

Or something like that.

Rant on. -Tommi

Links:

A Young Bernie Sanders Trying To Sex Up A Nation In 1972 | Mother Jones

Side Of The Trade

~ Tom

greeceCuriosity has hit this Ausländer a wee bit more than usual since Jan 1. The beginning of 2015 has offered up a lot to consider. First, the Swiss unpegged their precious Franc from the Euro. Second, East Germans, most of which were educated under the auspices of Margot Honecker, presented their intellect in the form of Pigeda. Third, the hardcore world of satire got its ass slaughtered. And so. The Euro might be under fire. Former East-Germans have come out of their third-grade closets. And the most shocking of all, a bunch of cartoonists were murdered because of pictures they drew. Wow. And now you know why I call it #eurowasteland. Indeed, dear worst-reader, much ado about everything.

Let’s move on to two other things that we can take with us for the rest of 2015. The first is the recent Greek election. The second is the reaction to that election by the uninformed. Or should I say the misguided? No. Wait. Americans aren’t any of those things. But then again, if you keep up with US news, like I do, then it should be no surprise how Americans have not reacted to the Greece election. There was so little coverage of the recent event in the American press (at least there was little coverage on the front pages) that I almost gave up on the issue. But then I came across an article (see below) on the subject from one of my favourite liberal websites. After reading it I realised that liberals do have good intentions. They also sure do know how to miss the boat in style.

I was indeed relieved that someone in my home country decided to take on the issue of the Greek election but by the third paragraph I was reaching for an exit in the form of my very expensive full automatic espresso machine (caffeine buzz), the magic scarf that I’ve learned to wear around my neck between the months of August and April (Euro weather comfort) and my passport because I thought it time to take a flight home to help my fellow #americants get informed. Then I took a deep breath, swallowed my espresso with my pinky hanging high and adjusted my scarf. Comfort in the horror of Cologne, Germany, winter amid lots of worst-writing. I gathered my-worst-self and reached for my worst-writing equipment. Lo and behold. Have no fear #americant. Worstwriter is here!

Let’s try and recap a bit, shall we? The Greek elections were on Sunday. A pseudo communist, aka modern socialist, left-wing party won the election by what can be considered a landslide. By Monday morning this new Greek government had a photo-op visiting a grave where two hundred Greeks were killed by Nazis–because that’s what Greek communists do when they win elections. Beyond all that the only other stuff being talked about was Austerity and the euro-crisis. But here’s the thing. Mark my words. This election will be forgotten soon enough. The only thing that will be remembered is the Greek obsession with Nazis and how the Anglo portion of the western world has probably failed in its bid to undermine the Euro through the vanity of the Greek oligarchs. Ok. Wait. Maybe painting a Hitler mustache on Merkel will be remembered. Personally, I think the Greeks should start posting those old east German nudist beach photos of Merkel. Yeah. She was hot back then–in an east German fräulein kinda way.

Ok. Here’s the other thing I wanted to worst-write about tonight. I have been living in #eurowasteland as an Ausländer for twenty-five years. I have worked and traveled throughout the “continent”. Even though I’ve only worked briefly in Athens (project work), I have worked extensively in Spain, Italy, Holland, Sweden, England and, of course, Germany. If you ask me what I think of Europe I will tell you toot-sweet that it is the origin of all that’s wrong in the modern world. Whether talking about government or krappy, ornery, rude people, if you want to know where modern human evil is rooted–look no further than #eurowasteland. That said, if you really believe that Germany is responsible for Greece’s problems, well, maybe it’s time to reconsider.

So let’s get a few basics straight, shall we? Greek problems are not from Austerity. Greek problems are not from the last five, six or seven years. Greek problems are not because of… Well, let me quote a part of the article that motivated this post.

“Perhaps the best way to understand what Syriza (the new Greek govt.) represents is to recognize the forces aligned in opposition, nothing less than the major European and international governing institutions of contemporary globalized finance. These are the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the German government (as the dominant player in the European Union), collectively known as the ‘Troika.'” (See link below for source.)

So. Bear with me. I’m still getting a few things straight. The guy who wrote the above text is not telling it like it is. Although for the most part his article is well written and accurate, he is telling the Greek part like someone told him how to tell it. Namely, that the Germans and the ECB are the reason the Greeks are in such trouble. It might be true that the IMF is part of the problem. But the IMF does not answer to Germany or the ECB as much as it answers to big banks. Yeah. Big banks.

Let me try to put it another worst-way before I get accused (by one of three readers) of taking something out of context. The financial problem Greece is having today is nothing new. Greece has had many, many years to deal with this but instead has found ways to weasel out. All one has to do is go back to the European Stability and Growth Pact of the late 90s. Greece has never abided by this pact. (In fact, Spain and Italy–the countries that are next on the downfall list–haven’t abided by this pact either.) Which raises the question: If Greece hasn’t abided by this pact, how have they been able to get away with it for so long? The answer to that is and isn’t easy.

First. Who wants the Euro to fail? Remember, #eurowasteland is the largest economic entity there is. It trumps the US by quite a large sum. That also means that #eurowasteland is a desired trading partner for not only the US but also the world. The only one to profit from the Euro failing would be private banks.

Second. When Greece took on the Euro it agreed to do things like manage its national debt, i.e. The Stability and Growth Pact (which is actually a treaty). Quickly after signing it, Greece decided that it didn’t want to manage its debt because that would mean living within its own means and also justifying its meritless high living standards. And get this. I can tell you first hand. I travel to some nice places two or three times a year. I never book Greece. Why? Greece is stupidly overpriced. Of course, most of #eurowasteland is overpriced because everybody lives in/for the past and most live in meritless high standards. The question then is, who can afford those standards? Seriously. You don’t get much bang for your travel buck in Greece.

The not-so-easy part of all this is that the recent election will end up being either a sad joke or further insult to Greek young people that have already been robbed of a future. What is clear so far is that the naive and angry Greeks really do believe that there is an enemy out to get them. What they don’t know or aren’t willing to see is who that enemy really is. On top of that, the world of finance isn’t willing to play with their debt lies anymore–hence blame the ECB and the Germans and don’t think twice about what Goldman Sachs did with the previous bailout money.

Greece, like a junky at a Vegas gambling table, has run out of sugar-daddies. So what do they do? Oh yeah. They have an election and then immediately visit a grave site where Nazis killed two hundred Greeks in 1944. Will that change their debt problems? Greece, like (monarchy) Spain and (über mafia) Italy, is its own worst financial enemy. Hence when Greece was first bailed out (in 2010?) they were stupid enough to let their oligarchs horde/steal the cash or Wall Street gamble with it. That is, Greece allowed Wall Street (Goldman Sachs) to continue gambling with bail out money in the form of Greek bonds, Greek derivatives and whatever other fancy-pants finance trickery they can come up with to prop-up the books. And the money did flow. And the Greeks don’t know an iota (pun intended) about where that money went. But a good worst-guess is that in such a corrupt, old-money society, where the past never dies, a few oligarchs have secured a future of luxury for one or three Greek grandchildren.

In the after math of this historic election, the only issue that need be governed is who is on what side of the Greek prop-up trades and who will pay for them? By the looks of it, the Germans are not on the wrong side of these trades because in the end the money Greece has already received (and gambled away) comes out of all of #eurowasteland coffers. For the Germans it’s a drop in the bucket. So. Nazi here or there, the reality is Greece has to pony-up sooner or later for its anti-euro behaviour and its meritless living standard. And here’s where we get into a bit of deep and serious irony. The Greeks just elected a socialist government. Why would they provoke the somewhat more socialist side of the western world’s capitalist pseudo-democracies, i.e. the Germans, by playing the irrational Nazi card? You would think that as soon as one hears that the most successful bailed out bank on Wall Street was part of hiding Greek debt (Goldman Sachs), that the Greek presses would stop. But the presses never stop where (old) men are ruled by (even older) men (and their old money) and not laws.

I wish the founders of democracy all the best. I also hope the young people with ruined futures will be able to make the best of it.

Link that motivated this post:

An Author At truthdig Almost Gets It Right | truthdig.com

Good luck. Rant on.

-Tommi

Security Data Ukraine

~ Tom

black_redAnother contribution to the Interwebnets containing an email exchange with an old friend. At times this friend brings the best out of me but other times s/he does not. Nomatter. The point is to think, express those thoughts, get them down for re-reading and then figure out what drove worst-moi to write/contribute in the first place. Or something like that. Don’t forget, for proper chronology, start at the bottom. Good luck. Rant on.

Dear Old Friend,

The reason there cannot be a completely different/separate Interwebnet for, as you put it, B2B, is because the Interwebnet protocol is not there. Could someone invent it anew? Maybe. But at this point it’s irrelevant. The reason for that is the environment that gave way to the Interwebnet is gone. No one will take the financial risk to actually try to (re)invent it or duplicate it. And why should they? And don’t forget, the reason the Interwebnet is what it is–is because it is open, it is decentralized. Which also means, no one will ever be able to close it down, either. You might be able to shut parts of it down, by turning off electrical switches and servers, but that will only effect compartments (i.e. countries, phone networks, etc.) Like everybody else using it, businesses have been on a free-ride from the get-go if they use Interwebnet protocols and now that they are being called-out on it, by hackers, it’s too late for them to do anything about it. Hence, all the fear mongering for security is not about you and me being afraid–which is what I’ve never talked about–but about scaring the companies to either invest or buy into the security scam. That’s why the articles and graphs you read are all on sites like MarketWatch and WSJ–fear is the only thing keeping the “markets” going. Which brings me to your point about encryption. Encryption is not the answer. They’ve tried that. They tried it with DVDs, CDs, DRM, etc., and even the credit card swipe devices at Target and Wal-Mart. Encryption will work for the individual and things like email (remember I offered that we try it?) but for the data exchange that is required by the whole Interwebnet, encryption will be too complex to employ at the scale the Interwebnet operates. And get this! The powers-that-be DO NOT want total encryption. Government must ride the slippery slope of ideology and politics dictated by dollars, my friend. As I’m sure you’re aware. Full encryption would mean that government couldn’t monitor everything. And, yes, they (govt.) even monitor and spy on bank transactions. Remember, it’s not only about encrypting the data but also enabling encryption in both software and hardware for the entire Interwebnet. To do that you’re talking about a huge cost, mostly made up of man-hours–and with the level of globalization that we live in, there is no way people would be hired to fulfill the level of man-hours required to make it all happen. Just consider what all — ALLLLLLLL — router/modem manufacturers will have to do to put hardware encryption into their devices. Dude, it is so NOT going to happen. Not to mention the fact that hardware encryption is probably easier to break than software–just ask the the NSA about that. The way we use technology today was not invented by any one person or company–it has grown out of the magic of open-ness and decentralization. That cannot be cracked or broken or controlled.

Cheers

Hey Worst-Writer,

The only thing I can say about the data on the Internet thing is that since I ran my company back in the 1990’s all business was moving that way. All B to B transactions have been on networks for much longer then the average consumer’s interaction with networks. Even if a completely separate network were established for BtoB channels, there are still hacks. There are hacks everywhere but there is no turning back. Everyone expects everything to be accessible. From travel to buying a scarf to looking up tax data or bank accounts. The access is expected and there.

From my perspective, the real technology would be in encryption. I may be wrong but I don’t think it would be hard for companies to pull from networks all but immediately necessary data. Then you massively encrypt all of it. Every log in would have to run algorithms to very or authenticate every “user” access. If someone wants to use a proxy etc. they don’t get access, plain and simple. The only people who get access are the ones that pass a set of protocols and after that, what they can access is limited. Archive data can be obtained but only through a series of proper protocols, which can all be automated… I mean everyone has processing power in their computers that would allow all of this. Internet connections would have to be more robust so places like developing countries and much of the US people would complain and have to find other solutions. But for the most part, It seems to me security should not be the problem it is but till now the approach to security has just not been taken a seriously as it should and what is called “security” is actually just “prevention of access” not true security. Anyway, that is my 2 cents.

I still don’t see the fear mongering cause I don’t know anybody, anybody, anybody who fears anything when it comes to credit card data etc. There is no privacy any more, everything everyone does is monitored and every savvy marketing company knows everything about you, your habits, health, location etc and I don’t know many complaining. There is no fear in security from a consumer perspective. Corporate’s need to do a better job but please tell me WHO benefits from SOME UNNAMED person spreading “fear” about security?

Your Friend

Dear Old Friend,

I can only continuing saying that the whole data-thing is a hoax. I don’t believe a word of it. Do with it what you will. What’s really going on is fear mongering. Fear-mongering to support an industry that thrives and earns on that fear because it’s easy to earn from. The first article I ever published, which was almost fifteen years ago, began with: if your business needs security don’t put your data on open networks. That might be a far cry away from the closed world of credit card fraud but the gist is the same. When I stopped working back in 2002 the only industry that could have potentially hired me was data security. Since then the whole idea of “risk management” has exploded, whether it’s about managing the risk of investment or the risk of a data security breach, the operation of such activity is the same. This is simply what happens when there’s no creativity left in the market, when all business runs on laurels, when everything has been marginalized to the hilt. Game over — so you better at least be secure. It’s all bullshit.

As far as the Ukraine… I think this is a test for Germany. I believe that Merkel has cut a deal with Russia/Putin that leaves the Ukrainians hanging but energy flowing–and the US has approved that deal (because internationally Obama is a few shy of a six-pack). The EU press, the German press and the pacified anti-war hippies are blowing this way out of proportion. Sure, people are dying, but when was that not the case in these countries since the collapse of the Soviet Union (or even before that)? Remember Yugoslavia or Hungary or Georgia? Those in the Ukraine that are “western” oriented have screwed themselves. They have chosen as their leaders people who are probably as brutal if not more-so than Putin. The oligarchs of Ukraine are gorillas, man. I read recently that it was probably one of those gorillas that shot down the Malaysian plane, he was the one who owned the Russian-made missiles capable of doing it–and the nutbags serving him actually thought they were shooting down a Russian spy plane because the pilots of that flight diverted their course to avoid flying over water (Malaysian airlines hasn’t had much luck recently flying over water!) and the guys running the missiles weren’t told that. Also, Ukrainians should have known that Putin wouldn’t allow their country to side with NATO–which is the ultimate threat to Russia, ain’t it? Just look at what happened to Georgia. I think the situation is dire for Ukraine but I don’t think this will turn Europe into pre-ww1 situation. Putin will probably contain this, probably with brute force, but in the end it will be contained. The EU is not going to war over this. Of course, it doesn’t help that the only significant contribution of Ukraine to EU are its ports for energy distribution from Russia.

Cheers

Hey Worst-Writer,

Bloomberg is not fear mongering. This is not MSNBC or FOX this is Bloomberg and corporate america is literally under attack for data. The fact that card data is so prevalent that criminals only get a few cents to at most a couple dollars for every “live” card number shows that. The damage is to merchants not the consumer so this is not fear mongering. Nobody, I mean no individual I know is really afraid of it cause the banks and merchants take a hit not the consumer.

Anyway, my barrage of info on the subject is just to indicate how prevalent it is and how versatile the criminals are.

What the Fuck is up in Ukraine? They are up to like 3,000 dead. There is a fucking war going on there… The markets keep going higher and nobody seems to give a damn. It is real man, this is not Syria or Iraq or Lybia or Yemen… These are Ukrainians, people with real weapons, who know how to make them, not some fuckers who live in mud huts and have no technological means to product a damn microwave let alone weapons. These guys are part of the race of people who can do some real fucking damage when they go to war… It’s got to stop.

Your Friend

Dear Old Friend,

It is an interesting graph… if you like red on black.

So, do you think, because I’m a registered user of Evernote (but I never use the krapp), that that’s how the crooks got my German credit card number this summer and used it to try to buy stuff at a Canadian Target store when I was in Virginia, USA? Numbers that indicate that what-ever million user information was stolen means nothing in the context of these two graphs. If they listed what damage was done to individual card holders I might be interested. Otherwise, again, this is only fear mongering.

Cheers

Hey Worst-Writer,

Look at this graphic: http://www.bloomberg.com/infographics/2014-08-21/top-data-breaches.html

Pretty amazing eh?

Your Friend

If I Were A Rich Man

~ Tom

Normally I praise the place I live because it is a pretty good example of a country governed by law & order. For the most part that holds true because Germans are still rather obsessed with Ordnung, although this is waning. More importantly, Germans are obsessed with maintaining the machine that provides them so much sustenance: the German nation-state-corporation machine. Unlike the UK or my grand united mistakes of American’t, places that believe more in the individual and less in the nation-state-corporation, Germany isn’t a place that squanders its justice system. At the least you don’t hear about that system much in international news. Again. That is probably due to the German mentality where, as the saying goes, there’s a policeman in every German. Enter the wonders of Bernie Ecclestone, his F1 circus and a bribery case that has made world-wide headlines recently. Luckily there are plenty of articles out there to inform one about this case and the fact that this Euro-trash slime-ball was able to subvert German justice in the only way possible: pay-off the nation-state-corporation. Which makes the whole case kind of ironic. The Germans want to prosecute Ecclestone for bribery that is connected to another German but what ends up happening is that Ecclestone bribes the Germans to let him off. But here’s the real important thing that no is talking about. The Germans should have never brought this case to court. But their hate has gotten the best of them. Ecclestone has been sticking it to the Germans with F1 rights for years. Now that hate subverts a pretty clean judicial record. The significance of this bribery case isn’t how much Ecclestone is paying into the nation-state-corporation coffers. The significance is the fact Germany is just another country that uses law & order as a designation on a balance sheet. Way to go krauts. Rant on.

Rich Euro-Trash Calls Himself Idiot | The Guardian

Summary of Bribery Case | Wiki

Even In Germany, Now, Pay To Avoid Justice | Sueddeutsche Zeitung (German)

Girl Gurl Haters

~ Tom

Boy do they get this wrong. What’s especially wrong is utilizing a picture of the communist best gurl-friend turned capitalist-lover as an example of Eurowasteland equality. Germania is a patriarch society. Period. It is a boy-club and it means nothing that its political polit-büro leader is female. Having lived in anti-feminine Germania for the better part of twenty-plus years, I can say first hand that the country is no closer to gender equality than any other western country. It is as split, divided, partitioned and gender oriented as the best of them. The whole idear of “equality” is a joke at best and ery cynicism at least. But then again, I reckon showing a female world leader, who leads the best business-nation-state there is, is a good thing for some because it clouds the truth of how things really are. Don’t get me wrong here. Germania, compared to other business nation-states like the puritan US or submissive Japan, is pretty good at things like protecting a female’s right to choose or even enabling the over thirty-five crowd to be conscious of negative national birth rates. But put some teats in the office of Chancellor and it will never even be discussed whether or not a female can head Mercedes, Lufthansa, Deutsche Bank, etc., i.e. the only stuff that means anything in the business of business-nation-states. Nice try Salon. Rant on.

Gender quotas work better wherever people like rules | Salon.com

When Blumen Weep

~ Tom

Team Germany Arrives At Berlin TegelSeriously. Hate to be a World Cup downer here. But I am worst-writer and not happy-writer. The article linked below starts with a reference (or is it a subtitle?) to ‘the bearable lightness of being’. I will worst-assume that the authors of the article for Spiegel International are playing around with the tried and true title The Unbearable Lightness of Being. But I could be wrong. Nomatter. Let’s go with this.

Germania won the World Cup–in case you’ve forgotten. And. When everything is great and everyone thinks it’s great, it usually isn’t–incase you’ve forgotten. And in this case, it’s ok… to have forgotten. Because there’s still room to have lots of fun. Eventually we all must get around the dilemma of frivolous happiness and joy and all-things run amok–but we can do that later–after we’ve all forgotten. So. Let’s dabble in literature, shall we? Let’s dabble so that we can better understand winning the World Cup and what that means for life, liberty and the pursuit of all things… Eurowasteland bourgeoisie.

In the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera explains the German word Schwer. It is a word, Kundera states, that means two things: heavy and difficult. Schwer is what Kundera’s protagonist Tomas must deal with thru-out the story which is set in 1968 Prague. Also, Schwer is both sides of a coin. It is the yin and yang, the salt and pepper, etc., of daily life of the story. Schwer is the trauma that Czechoslovakia has to deal with as it is engulfed in the Soviet machine that is the other side of the cold war (coin). Yes. No. Schwer. Heavy. Difficult. The lightness of being, dear worst-reader, is all about the intricacies of imposing a centralized, collective, authoritarian system on that which is meant to be light but doesn’t know that. Is that clear? But I digress.

The most chilling part of The Unbearable Lightness of Being are the people who, at their core, are the antecedent to the imposition they must face. Going about their daily lives, which is Schwer enough, they now must cope with a new brand of authority–a brutal and suppressing authority. Kundera’s characters are intellectuals–or at best they are thinkers. They are people that represent the other side of the two sides of Kundera’s coin. They are not worker-bees or automatons and they are most certainly not adherents of the antithesis of Soviet rule. Yet they are the story about that rule. One can only worst-ask about them: what do they mean? And so… If you haven’t, give Kundera’s masterpiece a read. Otherwise, skip the article below unless you would like to get a glimpse of Schwer in full blume, the flowers weeping, as the Germanins try to express themselves as Eurowasteland slash Germanin Champions. Or. Put another way. The Gemanins are now in a post World Cup 2014 state of mind and they are the third side of a coin. (I bet you weren’t expecting that one, eh, worst-reader?)

Indeed, dear worst-reader. The Germans won the World Cup. And they did so for the first time as a unified country. Unified NOT after the cold war but instead after the debacle of Eurowasteland reaching yet another pinnacle of top-down economic debauchery that can only be likened to its already well-read history, especially the part where Kings and Jacobins are beheaded. Germania also won the grand money exploiting tournament as a country that shines in all the gloominess that the west has imposed on the other stars of the blue and gold flag. You know, the stars that should be named austerity, recession, doom and deceit, etc. But why look at the stars, dear worst-reader? Why look at any truth that is far from the minds of the worker-bees and their guaranteed vacations, sick leave, pensions, procreation? For yes, the Automatons of Eurowasteland–at least the Automatons in the locomotive–are well and happy and besieged with the joy of championship. A well deserved championship–as I state here. Yes. No. Schwer. All is well schwarz rot gold. There is no Schwer anymore. Nuff.

How Good Can Life Get When Everything Else Crumbles Around You? | Spiegel International De

Rant on.

-Tommi

Wine Mis Advice

~ Tom

20140715-085033-31833665.jpg
Above a label from one of four bottles of “Lisini” 1998 that I have rotting in my kitchen. That’s right. They are rotting. Once they were magical bottles of wondrous wine. Then the reality set in. To remind me of what Italian stuck-up wine makers have done to something as simple as wine, these bottles will rot till I throw them away with their un-open content. To hell with ’em.

Not sure what it is. The wine-thing lingers around me. And to think I/we spent less than a decade playing with it. You know. Driving to Tuscany at least once a year to fill up our Audio A6 with various bottles directly from the makers. Then we’d transport them via Swizterland, paying appropriate tax at entry, reclaiming tax at exit, etc. I never thought that something like wine would get old, though. I guess the drive there from Germania was a bore. But that ain’t all. Sadly. Boy did it get old. And not just any kind of old. It got ornery old. I almost hate wine these days. That doesn’t mean I don’t nip at it once a once. It’s just that I’m so cynical toward wine, wine makers, wine distributors, it ain’t funny anymore. It’s sad. Being in America the last few weeks grinds my bolts even more. The wine is even more stupidly priced here than anywhere else. I still don’t mind wishing that all them greedy, snobby, stuck-up wine makers drown in the mess they created–because they have turned wine into a commodity, which means it is handled like a commodity and also means that greed rules everything about wine. More on all that nonsense here.

The other day worst-writer got a request from old friend that moved from Wash DC to the Philippines. He moved because, like so many, he was/is fed-up with home. He had sold his business, broke up with wife and realized that all that was left was… Well, what is left for the few and the non-greedy in American’t? Nomatter. He couldn’t wait to find a way out after doing the right thing for so long and getting nothing for it. You know. Just like so many other Americans have to do. It’s called paying for your parents greed or paying for Baby Boomer comfort. Or something like that. And so. Getting a masters degree in History at fifty in the Philippines sounds like a pretty cool idear. The best thing about it is that he can easily afford it and live abroad for a short stint. What a great way to clear the head, eh! Get all the shit of American’t out of you. Purge. Start anew. Anywho. Years ago I would bring a nice bottle or three of stuck-up Eurowasteland wine for us to enjoy. The gathering involved some good looking company and some dastardly conversation that lead to all things intellectual and titalating. Or maybe not. But. The wine was good. So. To my surprise he sent me brief request for info recently. About wine. Even though he’s up-to-date on my cynicism. Obviously he’s got some dastardly things in-mind for the Philippines. Good for him. Here our brief exchange–for worst-posterity’s sake.

Old Friend: Hey worst-wine-drinker, i know someone going to Italy. Want them to pick up a couple bottles of decent, but not expensive (15 euros max per bottle) wine. Any suggestions. Reds of course.

Worst-Moi: As far as wine is concerned and as far as my cynicism about it, especially Italian wine, you probably couldn’t go wrong if you got a Chianti Reserve or any reserve wine. In my cynical opinion Italian and probably French wine makers are in deep trouble because they really pokered their prices high in the first decade of 2000. I’m not even sure of the prices anymore. As you may recall, I gave up on Italian wine a while ago. But the good thing is, like all things greedy, things never change! You might be able to get a decent bottle of wine for $15. But I think you’ll have to spend more for anything even half-decent. The best wine that I remember from the days I bought there is Brunello-Lisini. But very expensive. Sangiovese–which is the main grape in Chianti–is also very good and better priced. Wines from Moltepulciano are well known for being strong and robust–we enjoyed them. When in Italy, though, we only drank the expensive stuff on special nights–you know, the titallating nights. We sought out good, basic wines that locals drank. But here’s the thing about them. You know how certain things taste better when you have them where they’re from? Well, that applies to worker-wine in Italy. It’s like Chesapeake blue crabs probably don’t taste right in the Rocky Mountains. If that makes any sense.

So what’s up with this? You’re in an exotic place in the pacific and you want Euro-wines? Nip whiskey, man. I’m sure you can get some good whiskey there. If you get a good bottle of Maker’s Mark and nip at it–don’t just drink it–it’ll last a while and probably taste better than wine. Whiskey is probably better with the weather/climate there too. Hope this helps and doesn’t confuse.

Good luck old friend.

-Tommi