GER politics thread

[Skybird]

In the state election in Lower Saxony, the FDP - a member of the federal coalition government - was kicked out of the state parliament.
The AfD, which here is so fragmented and at odds with itself like in no other federal state, nevertheless doubled its result over the last election's result, rivals the Greens, almost: 11% versus 14%.
These are two run-in, crashing kick-jump-slaps in the face for the government work at the federal level.
It will probably come down to a red-green coalition. Both parties have already stated that under absolutely no circumstances will they refrain from shutting down the third remaining nuclear reactor (located in Lower Saxony) by the end of the year, come what may. Meanwhile, more and more cities are reporting that they are preparing as best as possible for severla hours-long planned power cuts per days - and also for expected blackouts lasting 3-7 days - at full speed.
When the military officer responsible for desaster relief and emergency planning warned in an interview that the population should prepare for such things and consider them a realistic and seriosun threat, the female SPD carricature of an interior ministerisissy (sorry, I suck at this poltically correct gender bitchtalk) called him back and gagged him.
And if yo have missed it, this news: https://abcnews.go.com/International...ction-90629953 . Give the Berlin polit-chimps more bananans, they have gone bonkers. The worst-adminstered and most incompetent state government of all 16 in Germany. Since as long as I can think. Those elections last year were not even meeting standards of some corrupt third world state, it was a deasaster when considering regional authorities' claim how superior they are. Up to one half of the voting offices have seen unacceptable levels of irregularities. Not necessarily wanted fraud, but simply incompetence and inability.


Lunatic asylum Germany, October 2022. We continue to report as long as we still can.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Google Webpage Translator does not work for me, possibly due to some tight browswer settings of mine or security addons activated, I dont know. But maybe the link works for others.

ENG:
https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/..._x_tr_pto=wapp

GER:
https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/g...161645829.html

Both working fine at this end.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Both working fine at this end.

Thats good to know, the Google link for the translated webpage should give the English translated page, but I get from that link only the German one.


So i can nevertheless use the Google at times, not posting DeepL translation word by word, which is not easily done when the text includes many relevat graphs that all need to be carried over manually.


DeepL quality is much better than Google translations, however.

[Rockstar]

Arne Schönbohm Head of German Cyberclown security and Russian spy exposed and fired.

The investigation revealed "German" IT company Protelion is in fact a cover entity of the RUSSIAN company Infotecs, founded in 1991 by ex-KGB officer Andrey Chapchaev. Andrey received an Order for Merit to the Fatherland this year from: Vladimir Putin, can't imagine what for.
This is a national security emergency. And it's just the tip of the iceberg. Decades of German govts led by the CDU & SPD have turned a blind eye to &/or enabled Russian infiltration of German industries, ministries, & critical infrastructure.

[Skybird]

So ein Schmock! Ridiculous. FOCUS writes:
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Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) caused a stir with a sentence about Putin's gas blackmail. At the engineering summit, he said he had "always been sure" that Putin would act in exactly the same way. But as recently as December, Scholz had not wanted to stop Nord Stream-2 - despite all the criticism.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) made people sit up and take notice with a sentence at the mechanical engineering summit on Tuesday. According to the report, the chancellor said about Russian energy supplies that Putin "also uses them as a weapon." He continued, "I was always sure he would do that." The speech can be seen on Youtube.

Scholz also said - as he has often done in appearances - that he had therefore already asked his staff shortly after taking office in December 2021 what would actually happen "if Russia stopped supplying gas." And further: "That was, I think it's fair to say here, at a time when the vast majority didn't think it was likely, but I did think it was possible."

Explosive: Scholz was first labor minister, then finance minister and vice chancellor during the chancellorship of Angela Merkel (CDU). Now he claims to have foreseen Putin's gas blackmail, but at the time he supported the Chancellor's course.

With this assessment, Scholz triggers frowns among observers and the opposition, as " Politico " writes. For also until December, Scholz had called Nord-Stream-2 a "private-sector project." Only two days before Russia invaded Ukraine, the German government stopped the commissioning of the pipeline.

"As recently as December, Olaf Scholz said Nord Stream 2 was a purely private-sector project. Now to discover his conscience and position seems strange," CDU politician Roderich Kiesewetter told "Politico" about the chancellor's words.
--------------------
Mind you, this is the smarty who said "Who wants leadership from me should know that leadership is what he will then get from me." The smarty who let Hamburg city go up in flames during the summit back then, and afterwards said he accepts responsibility - and weaseled himself out of any responsibility at all afterwards and masisvely blocked police and juristic examinations. Who said that he cannot remember certain key episodes of a financial scandal we have over here and his own role in it, and meanwhile got shown in a book about it that shows that he can remember it all very well. The man who says he organses the biggest m ilitary aid to Ukrainbe seocnd only to the US, while at that time Germany rnake dnot even amognst the top 15 when he made that statement.



This pityful and always stupidly grinning carricature of a human being makes me sick. If he would get rolled over by a car in the street, all you would get is a spot of glibbery slime on the tarmac.



Pfffft, back into your basket, Fiffi!

[Jimbuna]

He must be as big an embarrassment to Germany as Boris was to the UK.

[Jimbuna]

Not sure whether to believe this or not.

[Skybird]

Dazzle from the glossy brochure of self-deception. It does not last, neither in terms of financial support nor in terms of temporarily increased acceptance among the population. And it is not difficult to increase this acceptance, because in Germany the military has always been looked down upon with great contempt. When it is so far down, change can really only go in one direction. And the 100 billion in special assets? To a large extent only a smoke candle, which is fizzled out as a component of the regular annual budget.


Don't fall for it. Look at how our economy is being destroyed intentionally, and how our additonal new debts caused by unofficial special fonds and side budgets have been pumped up to be twice as large as the official budget.



Biggest army in NATO. Yeah, sure. One of Bubble-Olaf's best jokes ever.



Be aware of one thing. In terms of financial policy, the balance of power in Europe is shifting towards Club Med, from creditors to debtors, and in terms of political organization toward the Eastern European members of the EU and NATO, with a focus on Poland. Virtually all the gains in political weight that these states are making, are gains that an increasingly weak and vulnerable Germany has had to give up. The center in Europe is shifting, from Berlin to Warsaw.

Germany will be lucky if it survives even the next few years in one piece without collapsing completely. The danger exists, and it is real. With our political personnel, one can only get scared and anxious. That's why I keep assuming the worst. I have every reason to. The era of Germany having a dominant say in Europe, is over.

[Jimbuna]

I'm a little surprised you don't think it is France who will become the dominant member.

[Skybird]

Unlike a viral epidemic, the madness carried by ideolgical fanaticism never becomes endemic, but simply worse and worse. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung writes:
-------------------------------------
The "rainbow portal" of the German government informs prepubescent youths about the possibilities of gender reassignment. This upsets the CDU in particular - but the entry in question was created under Chancellor Merkel.

Not every uproar on social networks spills over into the real world. Most waves of outrage peter out just as quickly as they arise. Things seem to be different in the case of the "rainbow portal" run by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs. A user on Twitter referred to a handout offered there for children on how to prevent the development of sexual organs. With the help of "puberty blockers," the "rainbow portal" said, little ones could gain time to "calmly consider: Which body suits me?". The criticism of the ministry of the Greens politician Lisa Paus does not want to end since then.

The portal, which is financed with tax money, sees itself as a "source of information, database and knowledge network". It was launched in the late phase of the grand coalition of CDU and SPD, in May of 2019, by the Social Democratic minister and current governing mayor of Berlin, Franziska Giffey.

At the time, the primary target group was referred to by the acronym LGBTI*; today, LGBTIQ is the acronym of choice. "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people" became "lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, inter* and queer people." What has remained is the concern. The Ministry of Family Affairs wants to provide information about gender diversity.

Is the portal fulfilling its self-imposed mission? The doubts grow. CDU member of the Bundestag Marc Henrichmann sees the welfare of children at risk if a government addresses prepubescent minors in this way and trivializes "drugs that have lifelong effects."

Henrichmann's party colleague, former Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner, calls it "crazy" for the federal government to recommend puberty blockers to "very young, insecure people." Admittedly, the offending entry with the headline "Young and transgender" can be traced back to August 2020, when the chancellor's name was Angela Merkel and she belonged to the CDU.

After public outrage, the Family Ministry responded. Preceded by a paragraph about "good doctors," it added the note that children should ask a doctor "whether puberty blockers might help." What remained was the thrust of the entry and the immediate salutation, "We have tips for you." Children around the age of ten are basically allowed to put their feelings above their biological characteristics, according to the "rainbow portal": "Do you feel more comfortable as a girl? Or do you feel more comfortable as a boy?"

For those who are "still very young" and can't answer that question conclusively, there are medications available to make sure "you don't hit puberty." And those whose bodies "really don't match the way they feel" can be made more masculine or feminine through hormones. Full-grown people can have surgeries to change their sexual organs.

Puberty blockers, whose use is counted among the ministerial "tips," are not without risk. They cause the blood level of sex hormones to drop. Those who even undergo sex reassignment surgery may later experience this measure as a great liberation as well as a catastrophic failure. Recently, there have been increasing reports of people regretting their transformation. Some psychiatrists see gender dysphoria in children and adolescents primarily as an "expression of failure to meet the challenges of puberty."

Recently, a gender clinic in London had its license revoked after children there were urged to transition. It is also because of such excesses that the deputy chairwoman of the AfD, Mariana Harder-Kühnel, accuses the federal government of seducing children into "manipulating their own bodies in a way that is harmful to their health" and motivating them "downright to rebel against their possibly protesting parents."

The Family Ministry insists in a statement that tips are not recommendations. Puberty blockers could be prescribed exclusively "after careful medical indication based on scientific guidelines by medical specialists." The federal government in no way recommends their use. The article, which has been in the public domain for several years, provides information in "age-appropriate, easy-to-read language on which questions affected children, adolescents and parents should seek advice."

In the "Rainbow Portal" itself, however, on the topic of "young and transgender" the child is addressed directly throughout. The question, for example, "Do I have to be either a boy or a girl?" receives the answer: "No, you don't have to decide. Many people are not only man. And not just woman. You can be both."
-------------------------
This country, this "culture" are hopelessly lost. Completely broken.

[Skybird]

FOCUS writes:

--------------------------------------

All over Europe, they are thinking about how to save their economy. Only in Germany is the main thing: climate-neutral! If we're going to go down, we're going to go down clean.

On March 14, 2020, the German Federal Ministry of Health published a warning. "Attention Fake News!" it said. "It is claimed and quickly spread that the federal government will soon announce further massive restrictions on public life. It's not true! Please help stop its spread."

As a well-intentioned citizen, one wondered how to respond to the appeal. How does one stop the spread of Fake News? By circulating the opposite? Unfortunately, that doesn't help against fake news either, because you first have to say what you're against in order to put it right.

Fortunately, the problem was solved just two days later. The federal and state governments decided on the very restrictions that the Ministry of Health had just ruled out.

I remember the first lockdown well. When I wanted to sit down on a park bench in the English Garden to read a book, two policemen approached me because sitting down on a bench for reading purposes was now considered a misdemeanor. Presumably, the Federal Ministry of Health considers spending time outdoors to be overrated anyway.

I couldn't help but think of the warning from the first Corona year when I saw the following anti-fake news tweet from the Federal Ministry of Economics last week:

"We have one of the most reliable power grids in the world and high security of supply. Despite this, claims are circulating on the net under #blackout, #powerfailure or #load shedding, spreading unfounded panic." This was followed by a detailed explanation of why power outages in Germany were as good as impossible.

We'll see how long this reassuring message lasts. In any case, I would advise coordinating with other departments after all to avoid unnecessary irritation. The Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Alert, for example, called just two weeks ago for people to build up a ten-day stockpile in case of power outages ("When putting together your emergency stockpile, it's also a matter of thoughtful planning").

It certainly couldn't hurt either if Economics Minister Robert Habeck would take his Green Party chairwoman aside for once, so that she doesn't continue to recommend load shedding in ARD interviews and thus "spread unfounded panic," as the memo from his office puts it.

We live in a strange in-between realm. On the one hand, we are just losing the foundation of our national economy with the collapse of the energy supply. On the other hand, the government is acting as if everything can continue as agreed and laid down in the coalition agreement.

Of course, the end of coal continues to apply. A few days ago, Robert Habeck concluded an agreement with RWE according to which the coal phase-out will not be postponed, but on the contrary brought forward by eight years - from 2038 to 2030. Of course, the nuclear phase-out will also be maintained. And I'm sure that if you were to ask those responsible how the plan to build two dozen new gas-fired power plants as a bridging technology on the way to a renewable future is going, the answer would be: everything according to plan.

What should we call that? German Sonderweg? Cosmic trust in God? Everywhere in Europe, they are thinking about how they can ensure that their economy doesn't go koppheister - only in Berlin they are happily continuing to build their cloud cuckoo land. It's fascinating, but also a little scary.

The German government's answer to the energy crisis is, in short: now more than ever. So now more than ever to push ahead with the expansion of renewable energies and the departure from the fossil fuel era. You know this from management seminars, where the motivational trainer advises people who have had the rug pulled out from under them to see the crisis as an opportunity. As a spectator, you say to yourself: Poor devils, you wouldn't want to be in their shoes either. Unfortunately, in this case we are all participants in the great management experiment.

Even the current plans are completely unrealistic. The "FAZ" editor Morten Freidel recently took the trouble to do the math. To achieve its goals, the government would have to build four large or eight small wind turbines every day for the next ten years. Even if all the approval procedures were to be dispensed with overnight: There's neither the material nor the assemblers to do it - not to mention the costs.

And in 2045, when everything is over because Germany will finally be climate-neutral, as the proponents hope, it would start all over again. Even a wind turbine doesn't last forever. After 20 years, it has to be replaced. Which means that a significant portion of the national economy would be constantly busy providing the wind to keep the country going.

Without a certain degree of energy independence, it won't work, at least if we want to remain an industrial nation. And that shouldn't be too long in coming. The 200 billion for the gas price cap will last until the end of next year. But then another winter is just around the corner. And then another. And then another.

We're a rich country, that's the good news. We're even an energy-rich country. We have gas reserves that could make us independent of the vagaries of the energy market for 20 years. Stupidly, we prefer not to even talk about this wealth. Most of the gas is in Lower Saxony. As you could read, none of the parties in the election campaign even mentioned gas reserves in a single word. That, too, is a strategy: evading reality through collective silence. We have some practice in this in Germany.

If you believe the Green strategists, it is clear who is to blame for the AfD's electoral success: the CDU, because its party leader warned against immigration into our social system. That's what makes life in cloud cuckoo land so pleasant: you can always pick the explanation that suits you best. Immigration, on the other hand, hardly plays a role at the demonstrations, where the main issues are inflation and energy prices.

The AfD's solution is to open Nord Stream 2. I am absolutely against that. I think it would be a huge mistake to signal to the terrorist in the Kremlin that he can do whatever he wants, as long as he just supplies us with gas again. But if you are against gas from Russia, you should be able to name an alternative. The alternative can't be to hope that the miraculous conversion of electricity into hydrogen will save us from all our troubles.

60 percent of Germans say they currently do not trust any party to get to grips with the problems facing the country. A record figure. I know in government they think people are too stupid to see the wisdom of the energy transition. But people aren't all stupid. They have an inkling: Shutting everything down isn't a solution in the long run, either.

In the middle of the week, the International Monetary Fund published its forecast for the coming year. For no country does the forecast look as bleak as for Germany. But for one country, Russia, it's even worse. But that is the only consolation.

If I were a cynic, I would say: The main thing is that we keep to our climate targets. If we're going to go down, at least do it cleanly.
---------------------------------------

[Skybird]

A (typical) German tale. Narrated by FOCUS.
-------------------------------------------------

Munich resident drives an old diesel again after a year of e-car chaos

The former Skoda, Holger Macht's faithful companion with a rattling diesel engine, had actually had its day after 20 years of life. Nevertheless, Macht still drove the car to his work in Bad Tölz every day for the past three years. But he already suspected since 2020: That won't work for long. "I knew that the Skoda would soon refuse service," he says.

Macht is a teacher at the Fachoberschule (FOS) and teaches German, history, and politics and society. He drives 100 kilometers a day to and from the FOS. That adds up to 25,000 kilometers a year.

In recent years, he had followed the diesel debate closely, hearing about the unhealthy air to which older diesel cars in particular contribute. And at some point he had decided to stop contributing to the bad air: "It was absolutely clear to me: I definitely wanted an electric car."
Munich resident wants to swap his diesel for an electric car after 20 years

Now one or the other will think: Why doesn't the man use public transport? But the connection to Bad Tölz is not that simple. After all, when the old Skoda actually went on strike for good overnight, Macht was forced to switch to public transport from mid-June 2022: "It took me 35 minutes to get to work by car, and a hundred minutes by public transport."

70 minutes by car, there and back, instead of three hours and 20 minutes by public transport: That has never been in a healthy ratio for Macht. Moving to Tölz? Out of the question for him. Macht has a private tie to Munich. "As a teacher, it's also not wrong to have a local distance from your job," he says, even though he loves his profession.

But Macht, as a frequent driver, bought an economical diesel again after all, for 8,000 euros. When the summer vacations started, he had time to look at some used cars. There wasn't much choice. "The market was completely empty," says Macht. But if Macht had his way, he would have taken out a loan and bought his dream electric car long ago.

For him, it's a dilemma. "I would have liked to have provided a little better air," says Macht. His conscience torments him to this day. "I only go into town by public transport anyway." But Macht encountered obstacles in his electric car project that he could not have foreseen.

The teacher lives in Ramersdorf, in a Gewofag housing development near Rosenheimer Strasse. He had been thinking about an electric car since 2020, shortly after there was talk of diesel bans in Munich for the first time. At the same time, he knew that his old diesel wouldn't last much longer.

The e-car project began for Holger Macht with an e-mail to Gewofag. He wanted to ask for permission to install a wallbox, or charging point, in his underground parking space. It shouldn't be complicated. For Macht, it was clear: "If I buy an e-car, then with its own charging point in the underground garage." His basic condition.

Too often, he had observed that the public charging stations were permanently occupied, with e-cars or even hybrid vehicles. But often also with diesel or gasoline vehicles, although that is not allowed. "When I leave for Bad Tölz in the morning, the thing has to be charged. I can't speculate on a charging option the night before or in the morning," says Macht.

On August 3, 2021, he wrote the first of quite a few e-mails to Gewofag: "Would you agree to a wallbox in the underground parking garage? Is there a need for a form-based application?" it says. The first answers come quickly, even on the same day. In fact, the approval of the landlord is required by law, the first mail says.

The second one, two days later, says: "An inspection is necessary and has been commissioned. This test was carried out by an expert from a Munich electrical company - whom Holger Macht was able to meet in person on September 10, 2021. They went together to the underground parking garage, to Macht's parking space.

Nearby is an electrical junction on the wall, about five meters from Macht's parking space. "The surveyor said that you could easily branch off a line here and put an electric meter in between, which would then record my consumption," Macht recalls. A wallbox could then be installed at its end, he adds: Macht's own new electric charging station.

Great, Macht thought, and believed it was only a matter of time before his wallbox could be bolted on. Full of anticipation, he picked out an e-car that would suit him. "It had to be a compact station wagon in which I could also easily take my husky Tommy," Macht recounts.

A few clicks on the Internet. There it was, the dream e-car: a Kia EV6. Cost: about 60,000 euros. The idea: pay a quarter of the sum immediately. "For the rest, I wanted to take out a loan," says Macht.

But the teacher didn't count on the landlord. Four weeks later: Still no answer from Gewofag. So Macht wrote again on October 9, 2021. The answer: They had requested the audit report and would get back to him.

More weeks passed. At the end of October 2021, KfW cancelled a subsidy of 900 euros for wallboxes. Money that Macht was actually counting on. Frustrated, he wrote to Gewofag - and received sobering news, on November 8, 2021: It was not possible to install a wallbox. Because it was not feasible to lay a line from the location of a potential wallbox to the electricity meter of his apartment on the seventh floor. That was the result of the test report.

Gewofag did not give any reasons for this and also did not address the auditor's idea of setting up the infrastructure directly in the underground parking garage. When asked by AZ, Gewofag wrote that it was a garage that was not located in the residential building. Therefore, a wallbox must always be connected to a power transfer point in the residential building. This would be the only way to measure the individual power consumption of Mr. Macht's future e-car.

For Macht, this was contradictory. After all, he had spoken to the expert personally. So he decided - Macht himself is politically active with the Volt party - to get city politics involved. "After all, the city has a stake in Gewofag," Macht thought to himself. He wrote to the city council faction of the Greens, the mayor's office of Verena Dietl, the municipal utilities and also the city council faction of the SPD. He pointed out that Gewofag always emphasized that it wanted to make wallbox access available to all tenants.

The campaign worked. Almost everyone contacted Gewofag and asked what the obstacle was to installing an underground parking wallbox for Holger Macht. In the end, Gewofag commissioned a second inspection. Mayor Dietl, who is also chairman of the supervisory board of Gewofag, personally informed Mr. Macht about this.

Dietl emphasized in the letter that Gewofag would basically like to promote e-mobility where possible and was currently working on a concept to enable all tenants to use a wallbox in the near future.

Three months later, almost March 2022. No trace of a second test report. Macht wrote to Gewofag again to inquire about the status. Once again he was put off. Then, on May 12, 2022, the result of the test report. A message from Gewofag. It said that the only way to install a wallbox was to lay a line from Holger Macht's apartment on the seventh floor down to the first floor level and from there to the underground parking garage.

Macht would have to bear the costs for this himself. Gewofag (current housing stock: 39,000) could not add anything. Meters, cables, infrastructure: about 16,000 euros. This is the result of the feasibility study by the electrical company. Gewofag could not cover the costs. "And that didn't even include the fees for the wallbox," says Macht.

In addition, he would be liable in the event of an emergency, the letter said, if the newly laid line caused damage. The cost breakdown for the wallbox line is 21 pages long. Macht estimates that the length of the line would have been 20 meters from his apartment.

16,000 euros, plus up to 2,000 euros for the wallbox, plus the 60,000 euros for the car: "Unfortunately, this cannot be financed," Macht wrote in frustration at some point in one of his last e-mails to Gewofag. For almost a year, he fought for a wallbox. For now, he continues to drive his Ford.

But the new used car isn't a permanent solution for him, either, since the city has announced it will ban many diesel vehicles from the city to improve air quality. Even though the city announced temporary exemptions for residents, this does not reassure Holger Macht. Because he could theoretically be forced to change vehicles again in about two years because of impending bans, even though his Ford Diesel is working fine.

Macht now wants to wait and see, but has decided to go electric for the time being, at least on two wheels, instead of four. "I bought an e-bike," he says. Of course, he can't use it to commute to the technical college in Bad Tölz every day - but at least he can ride it into town.
-----------------------------


Are you well entertained? How about a final joke then, to see you leaving this post with a laughing face?

A calculation demonstrated recently and gets often qwuoted since then that if the German "government wants to reach its climate-poltical goals until 2030 and abandon coal then, we would need from now on and then for every day until 2030 that every 15 minutes a big windmill is being launched in Germany additonally. Every 15 minutes.


The global supply chains are down, all main parts for windmill rotors now come from China or cannot be build without parts form China. We have not the material. We have only a small fraction of the engineers needed for this task alone. We have a dramatic shortage of workers. We have a dramatic decline in the economy, but still low unemployemnt - which only illustrates how few available workers we have. The the government collides head-on over the nculear powerplants.

But building 4 big windmills or 8 medium-sized windmills. Every hour. Every day. From now until 2030.

[Skybird]

Bubble Olaf finally - in the last possible week considering the legal framework changes and parliamentary approval required - did something that he hates to do. He made a decision on the njuclear powerplants. ALL THREE now should be runnign in full through the winter.

The Greens must be pissed. Durign past three days of their party summit they just ah decided they would stick to never let that happen and only two powerplants in "reserve" (by technical implicaitons not possible like they wanted it to do) until April, the third one switched off already in Decembre.

The Green slammed heads with the FDP whioch wanted all three to run on until 2024 at full power. Thsi they did not get, the three plants shoud be switche doff next April.

New conflict ahead thenm, becasue next winter 2023/24 could beocme even more ciritcla for Germany than this oen, becase we likely leave the winter season with empotier gas reserves than we had this spring.

All this is just a tinkering with immediately urgent symptoms. The problem of long time energy supply security is not being adressed by this, Bubble Olaf wants at no cost give the impression that nuclear power is an option again in Germany. He has ruled out to buy new nuclear fuel.



There is no realistic longterm strategy insight. Once again not.


Which is needed for running the three suriovivors at full power, because what trhey till have ha snot been renewed in time, becasue one wanted thme to switch off. They can only be run in limited intensity. That is what Bubble Olaf now calls full power". So even this deicison would nto have been an original Scholzian deicison if he would not have already put a weasel into it again.


https://beta.dw.com/en/germany-exten...nts/a-63466196


Meanwhile, the Association of German Heating Engineers has announced that it is absolutely impossible to realize the German plans for the energy transition and Habeck's so-called "heat pump offensive": far too expensive, many homeowners cannot afford the cost, far too many homes are not suitable for it at all, and the association calculates that it will never have the necessary staff to even begin to meet the schedules. There are also delivery problems and broken logistics chains, as well as dependence on China and materials from China.

But this does not bother the Greens, it is completely ignored.

There is now a certain possibility, not yet excessive but undeniable, that the coalition will burst.

[Skybird]

FOCUS comments:
---------------------------

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has put an end to the nuclear dispute that paralyzed the CDU/CSU for weeks. For Economics Minister Habeck, this may even turn out to be a success; the FDP, on the other hand, will have to swallow the 2023 phase-out. And the chancellor is making a bet with the whole thing.

What at first glance looks like a painful defeat for Robert Habeck and his Greens turns out to be a success on closer inspection. The chancellor's word of power on the vexed nuclear issue is a blessing for the vice chancellor - not even in his own party can he now be accused of caving in to his rivals from the FDP.

With his policy decision, the chancellor has freed his larger coalition partner from an ugly suspicion that climate activists harbor against the Greens. That in case of doubt, the Greens do not follow their green conscience and their anti-nuclear DNA, but rather their power. This is another reason why Habeck can live well with this Scholz decision. He may have to cross the "red line" that his Greens drew for him just last weekend, but he was forced to do so by a stronger force: the chancellor. If need be, this can also be used to create a victim myth that is suitable for the Green Party.

In a compromise, only one party ever pays the price. Scholz's decision is also at the expense of the FDP. The FDP will now have to phase out nuclear power earlier than it last wanted - by April 2023 at the latest. That's a high price to pay, by the way.

A party that defines itself as "open to technology," and even more so has made this its progressive brand essence, must now withdraw from a technology that other countries consider to be the hope of the future par excellence, such as Silicon Valley, which is specifically investing billions in the next generation of nuclear power.

Now to the Chancellor: in soccer, what Scholz is currently demonstrating on the soccer field of the traffic light coalition is called a "penalty without a goalkeeper." The compromise - all three nuclear power plants will run until next year, but then it's over - seemed obvious. Scholz just had to seize the favorable opportunity and casually push the round thing into the square goal.

For a chancellor who constantly has to face uncomfortable questions about his leadership, this was a gift.

Whether it will for Germany, however, is written in the stars. The country is now making a bet with Scholz at the head of government: in the end, the energy transition will work. And it will do so without domestic coal, without Russian gas and without nuclear energy, which is not harmful to the climate. Germany is the only country in the EU that has set fixed phase-out dates for coal and nuclear that are relatively close (now seven years). Other countries in Europe have taken a broader view, overriding their own ideologically based decisions against nuclear.

So one can only hope that all goes well. Whether it does or not won't be known for a few years. Probably not until Olaf Scholz has long since retired.
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The bet won't work, because it can't. Politics can neither rewrite the rules of mathematics, nor change the laws of physics by amending laws.

Therefore it would be enough to know at least some of the four basic arithmetic operations: Addition and subtraction. This would already be much more advanced than the children's game "Wishing wishes".

[Skybird]

A poll amongst German hospitals of all sizes above 55 beds made clear that every fifth house - 21% - is capable to survive only a few hours in case of a Blackout. Only 14% are prepared to maintain close to normal operations for sa few days if the Blackout lasts as longs. 40% of the hospitals said they would be able to care for patients only in a very reduced and limited format. 7% of the houses said they would need to completely shut down almost immedately.

The poll included 288 hospitals with more than 55 beds.

Supermarkets in Germany mull to close earlier in the evening. Except in Bavaria (where all stores must close at 8 p.m.), stores over here vary in their closing times, it usually set between 9 p.m. and midnight, smaller supermarkets in somewhat isolated locations may close earlier. More and more chains now say the prepare to close at 7 or 8 p.m. Reaosn is they want to save electricity for opights, and heating - and the high amount of empolyoeeds not working due to being ill from Corona. (In Germany it is punishable if you go to work with a diagnosed Corona infection, both money and prison penalties are imposed).

I sometimes like to go supermarket shopping in the night, its not as hectic and noisy as over the day, and not so many people around. But I can live with early clsoing times. I still can recall that in my childhood, all shops - ALL shops! - closed at 1830h... I could live even with that.