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I didn't really follow the issue and I actually thought we were further along. At least we have full civil unions including adoption rights. Anybody know what happened to the same sex marriage bill that the Hamburg senate wanted to introcude to the Bundesrat in '11?
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Dec 4, 2012 14:19
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Duzzy Funlop posted:Am I the only one who "Homo-Ehe" has a very weird ring to? We never did in the first place. I'd say Germany isn't as PC as most anglophone countries in the first place. It doesn't help that many topic names are coined by the (yellow) press, case in point: Dönermorde. Homo-Ehe on the other hand isn't marriage for homos but for homosexuals, it's just abbreviated because people are lazy. Ententod posted:Lots of old people here are still upholding their traditional Christian values. I suspect if Germans cared as much about their politicians' private opinions as Americans do, the CDU would be referencing their Christian beliefs a lot more often (whether true or not). They are already using the religious argument against stem cell research and medically assisted suicide. Not to forget immigration. Yeah I don't think we'll see marriage equality with a C*U government within the next 20-30 years. I can see SPD and green party doing it though. Sereri fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Dec 4, 2012 |
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Dec 4, 2012 14:27
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Germany went straight from the openly racist phase to the OMG IT'S POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD phase, without ever actually understanding PC language. Look at the way the CDU/CSU was still talking about immigrants and homosexuals and social issues in general under Helmut Kohl in the 80s/early 90s. We went straight from that to "omg you can't even say xy anymore" without realizing the irony of public discussion using Dönermorde or Homoehe without blinking. And it's not a case of "it's not meant that way" either, no one would have dared to talk about Spaghetti Morde for 10 years, and recently there was a minor storm in a waterglass when several political personalities realized at the same time that some migrant youth might call Germans "Weissbrote", so we had to have outraged political talk shows about it for a couple weeks straight. Same with Homoehe, it might start out of sheer lazyness, but it's certainly not used in a neutral way by large parts of the public.
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Dec 4, 2012 17:13
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az posted:I didn't really follow the issue and I actually thought we were further along. At least we have full civil unions including adoption rights. Anybody know what happened to the same sex marriage bill that the Hamburg senate wanted to introcude to the Bundesrat in '11? I thought the same, to be honest. I was really surprised that the Bundeswehr waited until 2004 to allow openly gay soldiers. On the other hand, at least no one is campaigning on denying homosexual rights. Perhaps the only really good thing Guido Westerwelle has forced the CDU to do.
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Dec 4, 2012 18:04
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ArchangeI posted:I thought the same, to be honest. I was really surprised that the Bundeswehr waited until 2004 to allow openly gay soldiers. Did Westerwelle ever come out? When thinking about openly gay german politicians, only Wowereit comes to mind.
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Dec 4, 2012 18:09
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midnightclimax posted:Did Westerwelle ever come out? When thinking about openly gay german politicians, only Wowereit comes to mind. Yeah, he's been out for years as far as I know, but his outing wasn't nearly as significant as Wowereit's ages ago. I remember during Westerwelle's first big world tour, several news organizations made note of his husband coming along with him (paying his own way, since he's a neurosurgeon or something). And Lukashenko had a massive  on Westerwelle a few months back during the height of some European criticism of his regime. I remember he said something to the effect of, "better to be labelled a tyrant than have a queer for a foreign minister" or something like that, directly referencing Westerwelle.
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Dec 4, 2012 18:18
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midnightclimax posted:Did Westerwelle ever come out? When thinking about openly gay german politicians, only Wowereit comes to mind. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/westerwelles-outing-guidos-inszenierte-enthuellung-a-309744.html
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Dec 4, 2012 18:22
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Drone posted:And Lukashenko had a massive That's some 4chan level of trolling there. Jesus, what an Arsch. niethan posted:http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/westerwelles-outing-guidos-inszenierte-enthuellung-a-309744.html Ah ok. Also 2004 is pretty late, first time I heard about "Schwesterwelle" was something like mid-90s. But whatever, good for him I guess.
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Dec 4, 2012 18:40
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elwood posted:Let's just make marriage a religious thing and keep the state out of it. Call everything else civil unions, change the constitution to reflect it and be done with the whole mess. This is a terrible idea. Why let bigots control the discourse?
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Dec 4, 2012 18:43
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midnightclimax posted:That's some 4chan level of trolling there. Jesus, what an Arsch. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/besser-diktator-als-schwul-lukaschenko-beschimpft-westerwelle-a-819206.html "Ich sage mir, besser Diktator sein als schwul." 
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Dec 4, 2012 18:51
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So I have a couple things to say about nuclear power in Germany, and wonder what you all think. Here's the Breakthrough Institute's assessment of Germany's state of the sector, showing how the nuclear phaseout jeopardizes emissions goals: http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/analysis_germanys_plan_to_phas A resultant semi-advocacy for some more nuclear: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/07/out_of_the_nuclear_closet The short version of what they, as I understand it: By decommissioning nuclear power, Germany now must go from 17% renewables in their electric sector to 57% in just 8 years. There is no reason to think that they can do this given their wind and solar resources, the lack of an even remote precedent for such an accomplishment, and the Germans' aggressive hedging by installing more coal capacity and preparing to import nuclear-sourced electrons to their grid from places like France and Lithuania. What say you all about this? I'd personally love to disbelieve it, but I feel a bit constrained by the data at this point.
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Dec 5, 2012 01:37
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goethe42 posted:Not from the train conductor but from the ticket inspector, who allegedly said it when waiting for the police after Mrs.Wevelsiep This, of course, fully excuses an entirely unrelated person being beaten to a pulp. Good thinking, way to loving go son. By the way, when we're already at anecdotal evidence to excuse RMV inspectors (for whatever reason, given the people involved and the incident are entirely unrelated) I have plenty of anecdotes to paint them as major scumbags, not that it matters, because once again, poo poo is unrelated.
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Dec 5, 2012 05:15
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The "Energiewende" will be a clusterfuck of epic proportions we actually had days where the whole nation was powered by renewable energy, and one of the major problems (during sunny/windy days anyway) is that we often produce too much energy and basically have to pay our neighboring countries to keep our power grid from clogging up. On other days, when we can't produce enough renewable energy, we need to run old-fashioned backup power plants, many of which are not profitable anymore and have been closed down for years (the government is actually trying to force energy companies to re-start said power plants). photovoltaic cells are receiving massive subsidies which caused a huge solar energy boom that is now partly responsible for overloading our power grid on a regular basis and pushing conventional power plants out of business, in a country that isn't really well-suited for that kind of energy source anyway. The construction of wind turbines along the coast proceeds much slower and is far more costly than anticipated, oh and nearly all of the regions that require the most energy are in the South and we currently don't really have the infrastructure to transfer the electricity across the country (this, again, will be very expensive). And the funny thing is that modern nuclear power plants are completely safe and this is all just the result of the angst that was steered up by the media. Hasardeur fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Dec 5, 2012 |
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Dec 5, 2012 05:19
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So this is a thing: https://www.facebook.com/hipsterantifa Hipster Antifa Neukoelln... I guess the level of foreigner hating is actually reaching a critical level, and people are trying to do something. Maybe the civic government should try and enact laws against property investors or something.
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Dec 5, 2012 06:40
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I bet that most of those tourist and new berliners hating idiots are not native Berliners themselves, but people who moved there slightly earlier.
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Dec 5, 2012 06:51
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elwood posted:I bet that most of those tourist and new berliners hating idiots are not native Berliners themselves, but people who moved there slightly earlier. A read a statistic that states that only about half of all Berliners were actually born here in the city, whereas the other half (like me) moved there from elsewhere in Germany/from abroad.
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Dec 5, 2012 12:54
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Hasardeur posted:And the funny thing is that modern nuclear power plants are completely safe and this is all just the result of the angst that was steered up by the media. The problem here is that we don't have any (actually) modern nuclear plants in this country, the newest started construction in 1982. Thats 30 years. Hell, some are from the mid-70s. And if the corporations would have their way even the oldest ones would be still running because they're paid off and are making money the longer they run. The whole nuclear thing is pretty hosed up in the first place, a for-profit should not be running something as highly dangerous as a nuclear plant. Iran can't have a nuke plant but Vattenfall can? A lot of what happened in Japan can ultimately be traced back to cost-reduction / profit-maximization. Then there's the fact that the corporations keep most of what they make from nuclear energy yet pay poo poo-all for waste storage. In the good-old days they even used to just dump those barrels into the Atlantic ocean. In the end it doesn't really matter though, if something happens in France we're hosed as well. And there's no chance in hell they will get rid of nuclear power unless a plant blows up right next to Paris.
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Dec 5, 2012 13:46
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Drone posted:A read a statistic that states that only about half of all Berliners were actually born here in the city, whereas the other half (like me) moved there from elsewhere in Germany/from abroad. I was born in Berlin and you can all get out!
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Dec 5, 2012 14:12
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The Brown Menace posted:major scumbags, not that it matters, because once again, poo poo is unrelated. Fun story, Hamburgs rail service once tried to sue me because a friends young child scribbled on my season pass with a pen and they claimed I was trying to fake it.
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Dec 5, 2012 14:33
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Drone posted:A read a statistic that states that only about half of all Berliners were actually born here in the city, whereas the other half (like me) moved there from elsewhere in Germany/from abroad. Well that's certainly one way to interpret the Wiedervereinigung.
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Dec 5, 2012 15:47
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elwood posted:I bet that most of those tourist and new berliners hating idiots are not native Berliners themselves, but people who moved there slightly earlier. The main issue seems to be Scandinavian firms (they're the most notorious) as well as now everyone else from all over Europe parking their money in Berlin real-estate because Germany is a very safe investment compared to Greece/Spain/Italy/Portugal, because as everyone knows those other countries were investment zones but they've crashed hard. When rents rise at a rate of over 5% per year it's a problem, but it's not individual foreigners loving things up, it's property investors.
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Dec 5, 2012 16:48
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And oh man breaking news: http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2012-12/npd-verbot-innenministerkonferenz-2 They're trying to ban the NPD again. Hopefully there can be some success so foreigners like me can stop laughing that Germans still allow Nazis on the ballot.
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Dec 5, 2012 17:08
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Landsknecht posted:And oh man breaking news: http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2012-12/npd-verbot-innenministerkonferenz-2 If it falls through again I hope we at least get reports again about how a sizable part of the NPD leadership consists of V-Männer. The fact that a political party is mostly run by people who are paid to infiltrate it never stops being amusing to me.
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Dec 5, 2012 17:24
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something that I read a while ago in The Spiegel that really surprised me is Germans seem to spend more money for vacations/traveling than any other nation in the world, including the US (not %, but total). You know, that's 80 million Germans compared to 315 million Americans. unfortunately, I can't find the article right now
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Dec 5, 2012 18:43
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Hasardeur posted:something that I read a while ago in The Spiegel that really surprised me is Germans seem to spend more money for vacations/traveling than any other nation in the world, including the US (not %, but total). You know, that's 80 million Germans compared to 315 million Americans. I work in the travel business and that would REALLY surprise me.
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Dec 5, 2012 18:46
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Well germans have weeks of holiday a year as opposed to days.
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Dec 5, 2012 18:52
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BabyFur Denny posted:I work in the travel business and that would REALLY surprise me. found this, from 2010 http://united-states-canada.knoji.com/10-countries-that-spend-the-most-money-on-travel-each-year/ but to be fair, this is only true for international travel and, well, the US is a huge country. Still impressive
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Dec 5, 2012 18:55
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Grendels Dad posted:If it falls through again I hope we at least get reports again about how a sizable part of the NPD leadership consists of V-Männer. The fact that a political party is mostly run by people who are paid to infiltrate it never stops being amusing to me. It's the greatest success of the intelligence agency, I mean they're much too busy infiltrating the NPD to figure out when foreigners/cops are going to be murdered by a terror cell.
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Dec 5, 2012 19:01
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Landsknecht posted:The main issue seems to be Scandinavian firms (they're the most notorious) as well as now everyone else from all over Europe parking their money in Berlin real-estate because Germany is a very safe investment compared to Greece/Spain/Italy/Portugal, because as everyone knows those other countries were investment zones but they've crashed hard. When rents rise at a rate of over 5% per year it's a problem, but it's not individual foreigners loving things up, it's property investors. How are Scandinavian firms infamous in Germany? I'm curious to know. I mean there have been cases in the third world of Norwegian companies pretty much involved in slave labour and then there's the usual mess with Statoil. What are Scandinavian capitalists doing to Germany?
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Dec 5, 2012 19:17
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Randarkman posted:How are Scandinavian firms infamous in Germany? I'm curious to know. I mean there have been cases in the third world of Norwegian companies pretty much involved in slave labour and then there's the usual mess with Statoil. What are Scandinavian capitalists doing to Germany? Danish investors have bought a shitload of apartment buildings in Berlin for what is a really low price to them, renovated them a bit then jacked up the rent by 300%. Other companies do this, but converting buildings to nicer units then raising rent by a huge amount is responsible for the middle of the city becoming less and less affordable.
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Dec 5, 2012 19:31
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niethan posted:Well germans have weeks of holiday a year as opposed to days. In addition to that it's pretty easy to get to a number of culturally quite different countries fairly quickly. Most places in France, Greece, Great Britain, Scandinavia etc. can be reached in just a single day of driving or a few hours of flight. In the US you'd have to travel that long just to reach your own borders.
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Dec 5, 2012 20:00
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Landsknecht posted:Danish investors have bought a shitload of apartment buildings in Berlin for what is a really low price to them, renovated them a bit then jacked up the rent by 300%. Other companies do this, but converting buildings to nicer units then raising rent by a huge amount is responsible for the middle of the city becoming less and less affordable. Yes, that's pretty much like the Scandinavian approach to real estate in a nutshell.
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Dec 5, 2012 20:55
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wayfinder posted:I was born in Berlin and you can all get out! East or West? Neither? Then you're too young to tell people to get out! 
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Dec 5, 2012 23:43
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Soap Bat Derby posted:East or West? Neither? Then you're too young to tell people to get out! pshhh West of course.
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Dec 6, 2012 01:39
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Landsknecht posted:It's the greatest success of the intelligence agency, I mean they're much too busy infiltrating the NPD to figure out when foreigners/cops are going to be murdered by a terror cell. Those devious Nazis kept the investigators busy by letting them run their party for them.
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Dec 6, 2012 10:45
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Sereri posted:The whole nuclear thing is pretty hosed up in the first place, a for-profit should not be running something as highly dangerous as a nuclear plant. Iran can't have a nuke plant but Vattenfall can? A lot of what happened in Japan can ultimately be traced back to cost-reduction / profit-maximization. Then there's the fact that the corporations keep most of what they make from nuclear energy yet pay poo poo-all for waste storage. In the good-old days they even used to just dump those barrels into the Atlantic ocean. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/akw-philippsburg-mitarbeiter-erheben-schwere-vorwuerfe-gegen-enbw-a-872817.html Spiegel Online posted:Berlin - Der Brief ist sechs Seiten lang und eng bedruckt. Er stammt vom 7. Dezember 2012 und ist unterzeichnet von einem "besorgten Mitarbeiter". Der Betreff: die "aktuelle Situation im Kernkraftwerk Philippsburg". It's from an anonymous source but I don't doubt it's true. I live ~30km away and I cannot wait for the day they're only able to mismanage non-nuclear plants.
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Dec 13, 2012 21:03
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Sereri posted:Notspeisegebäude Hört sich an wie eine Einrichtung, in der Hungerstreikende zwangsernährt werden. Das hässlichste Wort der deutschen Sprache ist für mich "Knirps", aber "Speise" kommt gleich danach  .
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Dec 14, 2012 00:30
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So... No one wants to say anything regarding that bomb at the train station in Bonn? Aparently the only reason it did not explode was a malfunction. We kind of dodged a bullet there.
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Dec 14, 2012 21:52
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Air is lava! posted:So... No one wants to say anything regarding that bomb at the train station in Bonn? Aparently the only reason it did not explode was a malfunction. We kind of dodged a bullet there. Must have been Muslims, Germans don't make engineering mistakes  I mean, apparently they used a lightbulb instead of a fuse? That is the second time we were spared a major attack because the terrorists didn't pay attention in bomb-making 101.
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Dec 14, 2012 22:23
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I guess Al Qaeda doesn't hate us as much as other nations but they feel they have to make at least a token effort every now and then and send some rookie to do the job, what with resources being scarce and all. They couldn't even be bothered to find a good target. Seriously, who cares about loving Bonn?
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Dec 14, 2012 22:40
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