Merkel criticized, lauded for allowing comic's prosecution BERLIN (AP) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to allow the possible prosecution of a TV comic for writing an intentionally offensive poem about Turkey's president prompted mixed reactions in Germany on Saturday. Some commentators praised the move as a vote of confidence in the country's justice system while others accused Merkel of kowtowing to Turkey, whose president had filed a legal complaint against the comic. In the unusual move, Merkel called a short-notice news conference Friday to personally announce that her government had granted Turkey's request to let prosecutors examine a criminal complaint against the comic for writing an intentionally offensive poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Under German law, the government has to grant permission before prosecutors can consider whether to press charges against someone for the crime of insulting a foreign head of state. "It's not clear what reasons weighed so heavily that she had to take this legally, politically and morally unnecessary as well as disastrous step," wrote Torsten Krauel, chief opinion writer of the center-right German daily Die Welt. Krauel described Merkel's decision as bow to Erdogan, whose help the chancellor depends on for her plan to reduce the influx of migrants to Europe. Any conviction of comedian Jan Boehmermann would now "carry her political signature," he said, noting that previously Merkel had been known as a strong defender of free speech and for shrugging off public attacks against her in foreign media. Others praised Merkel's move, arguing that it would highlight the independence of Germany's judicial system. "Unlike in Russia or Turkey, innocent people don't have to fear the rule of law in this country," wrote Berthold Kohler, a publisher of the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "The Boehmermann case is therefore better left in the hands of independent judges." The comic himself indicated that he planned to take a break from television for a while. In a Facebook posting Saturday, Boehmermann said he had received support from "the overwhelming majority of those who aren't President Erdogan." http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_GERMANY_TURKEY_ERDOGAN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-04-16-09-24-15---------------------- Funny 
|
|
|
|
At least these ones seem to be actual refugees, this is how it should have been done in the beginning for fucks sake, assuming they did proper background checks of course and this isn't just the BBC saying this.
We shall know soon enough... Or never. |
|
|
|
Böhmermann works for the zdf ( lying .gov press) so this might just be some type of conspiracy or hoax!
On a serious node qwk explained it already that the comedian knew the consequences of his poem ( they explained it beforehand) and in the worst case it will end in a fine.
There are laws for insulting/defamation/libel and additional laws for special cases of the same against presidents of other nations.
Everything what is happening right now is exactly the way it should happen in a state under the rule of law.
You feel insulted you take the person to court and the courts decide.
Btw. Germany will remove the special laws regarding "Beleidigung von Staatsoberhäuptern" because it is just a relict of past times ( deutsches Kaiserreich or weimarer republik?) and not needed anymore.
OK. This is normal in Germany to be fired for your job because you are a comedian. Good to know. |
|
|
|
Is Climate Change Affecting Suicide Rates?Every 40 seconds one person commits suicide. Only in the past 45 years the world has turned 60 per cent more suicidal than it used to be. Unemployment, low income, age (over 45), low social status, race, low educational level and mental disorders are often pinpointed as triggering factors in suicidal mood. These reasons are not panacea, nonetheless. According to Dr. Konstantinos Fountoulakis, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, who has a significant body of published work on suicidality, the racial minorities of Black American and Latin American peoples of the US are much less suicidal than far better-off White Americans. Likewise, the indigent countries of the Middle East and Africa are not tending toward taking their lives—at least when they are in peace. A look at the chart of global suicidality demonstrates that countries of Eastern Europe and Asia occupy almost all top places. Intriguingly, uber-rich countries like Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Denmark rank high, 14, 19, 25 and 27 respectively, far above debt-stricken, Southern European countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. “There is a zone of very high suicidality extending from Eastern Europe to Central Asia and Korea and a second of very low suicidality around the Mediterranean basin. The rest of the world lies somewhere in the middle,” confirms Dr. Fountoulakis. Among the troubled economically and fiscally countries of the Mediterranean Europe, Greece, by any chance the most troubled of all, appears the least suicidal of all, and ranks low on the chart (73), far below her prosperous creditor Germany (33), or the Great Powers of US (43) and Canada (40). This is an interesting finding as suicide rates in Greece have increased by 35 per cent in a little less than two years. Surveys are naming and shaming the crisis entering its eighth year now and the no-hope climate in a country plagued with an unemployment rate of almost 30 per cent and shrinking public welfare funds, soaring taxes, butchered pensions and so on so forth, in full accord with what Troika, and the 436 billion euros it has loansharked Greece since 2010 orders (surveys also reproach the press and the government for the public messaging of the crisis, for the way they have sensationalized despair). A recently published study led by Dr. Fountoulakis and his team comes to explain rising suicidality through a different lens, suggesting the existence of another variable more “lethal” than unemployment: climate. The study calculated the possible correlations between the rates of attempted and completed suicides and climate variables or yearly regional unemployment in the county of Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Northern Greece, for the years 2000–12. The scientific team investigated the archive of the Emergency Outpatient Units of three hospitals and projected the results to the county population. The rate of attempted suicides was 16.69–40.34 per 100,000 inhabitants for males and 41.43–110.82 for females. The completed suicide rates varied from 0.19 to 1.95 per 100,000 inhabitants for females and from 3.62 to 5.47 for males. Roughly 95 per cent used medication to commit suicide (medication is the dominant method of attempting suicide in the first-world, in stark contrast to the pesticides a person of the developing world will consume to kill themselves). The researchers found that the attempt rate correlated negatively with regional unemployment both for males and females but the completed suicide rate for males correlated positively with unemployment though for females there did not seem to be a major difference. On top of everything, attempts peaked in May and August, that is when spring and summer are in full bloom—and reached rock bottom in February and December, at the border of winter. In a nutshell, climate influenced men and women in a different way, but the climate effect was undeniably stronger than the effect of unemployment. This adds to data suggesting that around the world, including Europe and the US, the recent increase in suicidal rates preceded by approximately one year the increase in unemployment. Past surveys have also linked worldwide rises in temperature to aggression and found suicides, especially violent ones, more common during hot summer months and heat waves, which amplify mental and behavioral disorders. A research in neighboring Italy found that the latest climate changes brought about by global warming also increased suicide mortality in the country. Be that as it may, other scientific voices raise their concerns about how most suicidal individuals are closely monitored by friends and family when they spend more time indoors during the cold days of winter or that not all places around the planet are responding symmetrically to climate change; some are warming, some are drying, some are cooling. Asked whether global warming will indeed shoot up the number of suicides the world over, Dr. Fountoulakis answers: “Populations have adapted to the climate of their country over the course of centuries, something evident in, for example, the color of the skin. Predominantly, it is the changes in established climate conditions that affect suicidality in prone people. Current evidence prohibits us from drawing definitive conclusions on such a delicate issue, but we are conjecturing that global warming might influence the suicide rate.” http://globalcomment.com/climate-change-suicide/---------------------------------------------- So... Less humans... Less evil cars on the roads... Less profits for evil Exxon... Better planet. When you reject global warming, you push al gore believers into doing their best to save the planet, for us...
|
|
|
|
New York's Frustration With All Things Obama Pushing Trump To Huge Primary Win...Donald Trump will win New York State’s upcoming GOP primary election, it’s just a matter of how significant that victory will ultimately prove to be. If current trends hold to Tuesday, it will be very-very significant for no other reason than millions of New York voters from a wide swath of socio-economic backgrounds have become increasingly disgusted by the inept, over-regulatory, and ultimately divisive Obama White House and are looking to Trump to give the country a much-needed restoration. In fact, Trump’s support in the blue-collar regions of upstate New York appears likely to surpass his continued strong support in Gotham City itself. This upstate pro-Trump surge is consistent with Trump’s appeal across the United States, the result of the candidate’s unapologetic “America first” demand that “…all talk no action politicians” finally step aside and let the country be run by those who have actually accomplished success outside of the D.C. snake-pit. It’s a message that is undeniably resonated with Mr. Trump’s fellow New Yorkers:  Trump’s primary adversary, Senator Ted Cruz, hasn’t given up making appearances in New York, focusing on that state’s smallish evangelical population, but word is the Cruz campaign is already conceding it might in fact finish third on Tuesday behind one-time primary winner, John Kasich. Team Cruz continues to spend millions keeping a ground game in place across the nation, and is now focused on hoped for delegate pickups in Indiana and California to remain a viable alternative to Trump come the GOP convention this summer. Cruz operatives are said to have admitted there is no mathematical chance for them to win the nomination via the primary election process but rather through a contested/brokered convention, a fact Mr. Cruz apparently discussed with his team weeks earlier even as he repeatedly told the media he intended to win a majority of delegates before the convention, yet another example of the Texas senator saying one thing while clearly doing another. http://dcwhispers.com/new-yorks-frustration-things-obama-pushing-trump-huge-primary-win/
|
|
|
|
I suppose it's better than nothing...
But, the vatican is the wealthiest business on the planet... they have all the money... and they only help 12 people?!?
WTF? Where are your priorities?
Yes. the vatican should help christians FIRST. All of them. |
|
|
|
Ferocious battle involving hundreds of rioters erupts at migrant camp under Paris Metro as terrified residents film the clashes from their windows above |
|
|
|
This thread is almost as classy as Donald Drumpf
You've been a big help for this. Who's Donald Drumpf? Still no direct quotes from you, not even in your little copycat thread made out of pure unicorn's dead skin.  |
|
|
|
Hello, I'm a German  Just to set a few things right and into perspective: freedom of speech is not really limited in Germany. As long as you voice your opinions, there are just a few minor things you may not say, and even if you do, you usually face a minor fine like a couple hundred bucks. It is for example illegal to: - deny the Holocaust + some other "Nazi" stuff - propagate violence against minorities, e.g. "Kill all muslims!" - insult people directly and in a demeaning way, e.g. "Peter is an asshole" - publicly claim as a fact which is not, e.g. "Barack Obama is a convicted child molester" All of these (and some other exceptions I might have forgotten) may result in prosecution, usually not by a state attorney (only in cases one and two), but by the person you insulted. If this person is a public figure, it is even asserted that they have to bear a higher level of insult and false statements against them. While I personally could sue someone for calling me an asshole, our chancellor probably could not. Now, in the case of Erdogan and the comedian, the comedian specifically tailored the words of his poem in a way that is definitely, and without any doubt whatsoever, illegal. Which is precisely what he wanted. He even called his own poem a "Schmähkritik" which is the precise legal definition of where you cross the border of legal to illegal. If you now believe that the prosecution of this comedian is something against the comedian, you simply don't understand the comedian himself, and his humor is lost on you, sorry, guys.
TLDR; crossing the border to illegality was precisely what the comedian wanted, and what's so funny about it. In no way is freedom of speech in any danger by it.Hello, I am not German Can you tell us what this article is about? http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article154423058/Boehmermann-kuendigt-Fernsehpause-an.htmlTLDR; Is this article describing precisely what the comedian wanted, and what's so funny about it? In no way is freedom of speech in any danger by it? I welcome the perspective of a real German will a real sense of German humor, both things I obviously lack... Thank you. |
|
|
|
Pope Francis has taken 12 Syrian migrants back with him to the Vatican after visiting a camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. The three families, including six children, are all Muslim and had their homes bombed during the Syrian war. The Vatican said in a statement that Pope Francis wanted to "make a gesture of welcome'' to the refugees. Thousands of migrants are now stuck on Lesbos after last month's EU-Turkey deal to try to ease the flow. All of those leaving with the Pope were already living on Lesbos before the deal was implemented, the Vatican said. They were reportedly selected from lots drawn, and will be looked after initially by the Sant'Egidio community, known for their charity work. Under the EU-Turkey agreement, migrants arriving illegally on the Greek islands from Turkey after 20 March will be deported unless they successfully claim for asylum. In return, for every Syrian returned to Turkey, the EU will take another Syrian directly from Turkey. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36063300 |
|
|
|
He's the first anti bush person in decades. Finally someone will make that family of leeching lice pay for the trillions they stole from the country.
I hope they line up that family in some electric chairs and burn them worse than that guy on the 1989 batman movie. On fire til their crisp. I hope he embarasses them and we get to go to war against saudi arabia and wipe those suckers off the map. Every syndacate related to the bush cartel too like the sinaloa cartel, the entire mexican mafia, the chadian mobs and all the others. End this 16 year period of moral depression.
Well now, that's fascinating. Are you ignoring the last seven years of Obama? He gets a free pass and can do no wrong? {off topic ON} Have you noticed how racist Hollywood has become? Not too many TV shows or movies portray a US black president when the story was happening in the last 7 years (afaik). As if they were afraid to make the wrong choice in casting. So they pick no one and 0bama gets The Eraser treatment... Have you noticed how disrespectful progressives has become by refusing to call the current administration the 0bama administration? As if they were afraid to make him look like a president in charge and in command in the past seven years, so not to associate his name with all the multiple fubar his government has been responsible for? 0bama gets The Eraser treatment again. Strange. {off topic OFF} |
|
|
|
0bama can never meet him. |
|
|
|
President Obama is meeting with a group of music stars on Friday to discuss his push for criminal justice reform and his initiaitve dedicated to helping young men and boys of color. Rappers Busta Rhymes, Common, J. Cole, Wale, Ludacris and Chance the Rapper are all attending the meeting, according to a senior administration official. The group also includes Alicia Keys and Janelle Monae. “Many of these artists have lent their voices and platforms to promoting these issues,” the official said. “Through their own nonprofit work or artistic commitment, many of these artists have found ways to engage on the issues of criminal justice reform and empowering disadvantaged young people across the country.” The meeting comes as Obama is trying to beef up support for the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative, which is designed to help young African-Americans get an education, college degree and job training. Obama and his supporters launched a nonprofit group last May that will allow the president to continue the work once he leaves office. http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/276491-obama-rapper-meet-on-criminal-justice-reform |
|
|
|
....have a look at Detroit. Here's a city that was THE epicenter of American vehicle manufacturing. The pride of American can-do hoo-ha and all that jazz. In fact, I'm going to coin that phrase into a word to describe American arrogance: American Candohooha. I know, it sounds like a river back east, but let's use it anyway. American Candohooha supported a population of over a million people in Detroit. All kinds of snazzy buildings and houses. They thought it'd last forever. Kind of like the ghost towns you find out here where I live. They thought that would last forever, too, and now you need a topo map to find these places.
Detroit now has about 700,000 people. They had something like 70,000 abandoned buildings. People starting fires left and right in them, sometimes up to 30 fires a night. The fire department was stretched to the limit and finally, a new fire commissioner said let fires in abandoned buildings just burn. Don't fight them. Wake up, America: This is your future. Detroit declared bankruptcy. This is where all major cities are eventually headed. American Candohooha is the past. What, the federal government is coming to save you? Did they save Detroit? Think about it. If the federal government really cared about Detroit, do you think they'd have let an epidemic of arson like that continue? No. They'd have called it "terrorism" and there would have been tanks and troops patrolling those neighborhoods with orders to shoot arsonists on sight and they'd have sent in a thousand fire engines and an army of federal firefighters. ....
The end is near everyday for everybody. Can I have an Amen brother! Every day has an end to the day. And fuck Detroit and Lew Rockwell.  |
|
|
|
The End is Not Near, It has Begun I've gotten some emails from folks asking my opinion on "How's it all going to end?" As in, what major crisis is going to finally cause the American Giant to fall down and go boom? Guess what? There won't be a major crisis that does it. It's going to be a slow cascade reaction of crisis and disasters. What's more, it has already begun. We've already seen several of these disasters. More are on the way. The end has begun and is upon us.
Now, if you want to see what it will look like, have a look at Detroit. Here's a city that was THE epicenter of American vehicle manufacturing. The pride of American can-do hoo-ha and all that jazz. In fact, I'm going to coin that phrase into a word to describe American arrogance: American Candohooha. I know, it sounds like a river back east, but let's use it anyway. American Candohooha supported a population of over a million people in Detroit. All kinds of snazzy buildings and houses. They thought it'd last forever. Kind of like the ghost towns you find out here where I live. They thought that would last forever, too, and now you need a topo map to find these places.
Detroit now has about 700,000 people. They had something like 70,000 abandoned buildings. People starting fires left and right in them, sometimes up to 30 fires a night. The fire department was stretched to the limit and finally, a new fire commissioner said let fires in abandoned buildings just burn. Don't fight them. Wake up, America: This is your future. Detroit declared bankruptcy. This is where all major cities are eventually headed. American Candohooha is the past. What, the federal government is coming to save you? Did they save Detroit? Think about it. If the federal government really cared about Detroit, do you think they'd have let an epidemic of arson like that continue? No. They'd have called it "terrorism" and there would have been tanks and troops patrolling those neighborhoods with orders to shoot arsonists on sight and they'd have sent in a thousand fire engines and an army of federal firefighters. But Detroit has no value to the feds. Obviously.
The federal government knows something many of us don't want to admit. Eventually, several regions in the United States are going to cascade into collapse a lot quicker as they gain momentum. It's like an avalanche. It begins with the loss of manufacturing economies in cities where that is the lifeblood of that city. Once that's gone, the tax base that supports the infrastructure goes away. Thus, you can't really afford to take care of it anymore. Then with all the abandoned buildings, the fires begin. Before you know it, the place looks like Berlin in 1945. That's what happened to Detroit. That is the future of America as a whole.
The feds are probably trying to figure out exactly what they're going to be able to hold onto and consolidate as the "United States". Some regions are probably going to slowly move towards secession not because of political ideology, but for mere survival. Look, the feds sat there and let Detroit burn night after night and couldn't care less. Not every state or region is going to accept that from them. Not the Southwest I know. I would say we could look to probably Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and possibly Utah and Colorado forming a new nation of their own once their major cities start burning. California will be crapping bricks within a couple years because we'll block them from the Colorado River water. Arizona is already saying we need to start pinching off California's access to that water because of an epic drought we've got going on here.
Read more at https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/04/jack-perry/end-not-near/. The end is near everyday for everybody. Can I have an Amen brother! |
|
|
|
^ Good news then as TRUMP is not a politician. At last, something we can agree on  We can agree on lots of different topics I am sure. |
|
|
|
^ Good news then as TRUMP is not a politician. |
|
|
|
Not going to happen. It should but won't. If it was going to happen it would have started with many others before her. Cheney, rumsfeld, bush, wolfowitz, kissinger, maybe most other american presidents and advisers too. But maybe the FBI investigation will get her.
Things are not going to be the same forever. The federal debt is rapidly approaching the $20 trillion mark, and if Hitlery becomes the next president, then we can expect it to rise to $50 trillion by 2020. Sooner or later, the Americans will lose their dominance, and they will be forced to end their interventions in various third world nations. Isn't this their ultimate goal? It's not that simple. First, it isn't the 50T mark that signals any sord of end of dominance for America. For example, if most other nations' debt has risen faster and higher, we at 50T may be a shining star. Second, the entire world is at various rates, becoming modernized. Lots of places are moving out of third world, perhaps the exceptions being the hard core muslim nations. We're all in favor of the entire world becoming more prosperous, that's a different thing than "America losing dominance." Other places are moving forward to become one https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1316268.msg14538279#msg14538279The American dominance started when the chewing gun hit the beach of Normandy, then kept growing when people started to cross a wall in Berlin hidden under car seats. I don't believe a military dominance is a winning tactic. The chewing gum strategy had a deeper impact. We need to invest in that EMdrive now and start building Burger Kings all over the galaxy and beyond, using the meat found locally. America means to have a vision not being afraid of dreaming big, one Double Alpha Centauri Mermaid Meat Whopper at a time... If by some statisical fluke 21 of them were perfect but the 22nd was the wrong isomer, then those burgers would look good and taste good but would not keep you alive. And there should be higher and better uses for Alpha Centauri Mermaids, anyway.Yes. That's why we won't eat those Alpha Centauri Mermaids with purple tongue s. Technological evolution should be represented as a ripple produced in the water when you drop that rock. The ripple is predicting that, by the time we can travel cheaply across the galaxy, everything needed for a human to survive the trip will be in a container no bigger than a 3rd generation ipod. Believe in the mermaid burger.  Can you fly an iPhone to the stars?
In an attempt to leapfrog the planets and vault into the interstellar age, a bevy of scientists and other luminaries from Silicon Valley and beyond, led by Yuri Milner, a Russian philanthropist and Internet entrepreneur, announced a plan on Tuesday to send a fleet of robot spacecraft no bigger than iPhones to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system, 4.37 light-years away. Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/science/alpha-centauri-breakthrough-starshot-yuri-milner-stephen-hawking.html?_r=2.See, also, https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/194927-2016-04-12-so-how-exactly-do-we-get-to-alpha-centauri.htm and http://www.popsci.com/how-do-we-get-to-alpha-centauri.  |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
