Diversity Comes To Sollingen

The Guardian: Germany mass stabbing: police hunt suspect after three killed at festival in Solingen

NBCnews.com: Syrian man arrested over deadly knife attack in Germany; Islamic State group claims responsibility

 The festival was, most ironically, billed as a festival of diversity:

Police in Germany are searching for an unknown suspect behind a mass stabbing at a festival on Friday night that killed three and injured eight, five of them seriously.

The knife attack took place as thousands of people gathered at the central square in the city of Solingen in the country’s west during celebrations to mark its 650th anniversary, billed as a festival of diversity.

The attacker was caught, per NBCnews, which fails to mention the nature of the festival, and the attacker claimed to be a member of the Islamic state.  The attacker had applied for asylum in Germany, and celebrated diversity and his granting of asylum by killing and wounding various diverse Germans in the name of Allah.

The Typical Response Of Animals

So in response to the false blaming of Israel for Palestinian Islamic Jihad's dropping a rocket on their open hospital (or potentially only the hospital parking lot with far fewer than the claimed 500 casualties - the lie may be even bigger) the Arab world decided to flip out nicely.

Continuing their tradition of Jew-hatred, not to mention lack of respect for anyone's holy places, Arabs and Muslims as expected decided it was time for the time-honored tradition of attacking and destroying synagogues.

Now, one of, if not the oldest, synagogue in Africa was destroyed today based on Hamas' lie:  Historic synagogue in Tunisia heavily damaged in rioting tied to Israel-Hamas war

A historic but defunct synagogue in Tunisia was reduced to rubble on Tuesday amid mass rioting after an explosion in a Gaza hospital that terror group Hamas and much of the Arab world blamed on Israel.

Hundreds of people were filmed setting fire to a synagogue in the central Tunisian city of Al Hammah in the hours after the explosion, at a Gaza City hospital where Hamas said many people died. Videos that circulated widely on social media showed people planting Palestinian flags and chipping away at the synagogue building’s stone walls, all without any police intervention.

Some users shared the video of the arson alongside a “#Palestine” hashtag. A video taken Wednesday shows heavy damage to the site, including to the fenced-off grave of a 16th-century rabbi that been a historic pilgrimage site for some Jews.

Germany, having its own  historical track record of burning synagogues, quickly followed suit - but luckily not with such a devastating result - with a Molotov cocktail thrown at a synagogue today as well. The thrower was arrested shouting anti-Israel slogans, and thankfully his aim was a bit off.

So no, it's certainly not anti-Israel when you torch a synagogue, that's straight out antisemitism, which is no surprise, as much of anti-Israel sentiment is thinly veiled or indeed outright antisemitism itself.

That Subsidy Could Have Bought An Awful Lot of New Power Plants

The Detroit News: Germany to spend billions to tackle high energy prices

Green dreams tend to end up in power supply nightmares, don't they?

Germany plans to spend up to 200 billion euros ($195 billion) helping consumers and businesses cope with surging energy prices, particularly for natural gas, due to the war in Ukraine.

Note this doesn't actually tackle high energy prices and does nothing to address the supply issue, it merely papers over it for consumers and has the government pay for the increase that is due to lousy planning on the German government's part when it comes to energy.  It's just a lot of spent money to kick the can down the road and not address the problem.

At approximately $4 Billion per reactor in construction costs (Nuclear power plants apparently are very expensive to build but relatively inexpensive to run), that money could have built 48 Nuclear plants and had money left over for operations of them.

Pity Germany embraced outsourcing its power generation and power supplies to a rather unreliable supplier in Russia.  

Even better, remember how they smirked and outright laughed at Trump when he noted their reliance on Russian gas was a bad idea. Who is laughing now?

Hindsight Is 2022

Ah,  the good old days when Europeans laughed at Trump and America's simplisme. Watch them smirk at the clearly horridly gauche demand that Europe increase military speeding to be able to meaningfully contribute to their own defense, and quit their reliance on Russian gas as they let their Greenies eliminate other sources of energy.

Ript: 2018: GERMANY AT UN LAUGHED AT WARNINGS OF RUSSIAN GAS RELIANCE

That attitude really didn't age well,  now did it?  Yet again Trump was right and the bien pensants were rather badly wrong.  

But hey, no mean tweets, amirite?

Germans Now Doing What Trump Was Condemned For Asking Them To Do

In the face of Russian aggression, Germany is finally going to start spening on revitalizing it's military so it can begin honoring its NATO defense commitments.

The Detroit News: Germany to buy US-made F-35s to replace aging bombers

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced last month that the country would create a special fund of 100 billion euros ($113 billion) to bolster its armed forces and raise defense spending above 2% of gross domestic product, a measure on which it had long lagged behind other NATO countries on.

Better late than never, I suppose.

They're also going to buy some F-35s to replace their aging Tornados.

Of course the Left in Germany really hates the fact that Germany might have a credible air force again and most especially that an F-35 could potentially carry a nuclear weapon:

“We reject arming the Bundeswehr with new, nuclear-capable combat jets,” said Ali Al-Dailami, the [Left] party’s deputy defense spokesman. He warned that equipping German pilots to drop U.S. atomic bombs could “fuel the risk of nuclear war in Europe.”  

I hate to break it to the Left, but the Tornado, the plane the F-35 will be replacing, was also fully capable of carrying out a nuclear mission so this changes nothing potential nuclear capabilities-wise.  

Interestingly, Germany had previously said no to the F35 as too expensive and they didn't want to increase their defense spending, but Putin's invasion is making them pick a capable aircraft to replace their obsolescent fleet.

I don't believe in any case that anyone will be giving the Luftwaffe nukes anytime soon, but they do need to have a functioning air force again if they want to have any role in NATO at all.

Nice to see Trump being vindicated about Germany needing to spend more on its own defense.  I'm sure his critics will apologize for criticizing his requests that Germany do so any day now.  Really, any day at all.

Knife Attack On A German Train: Don't Mention The I-Word

As one imagines, the motive will likely never be known and is terribly unclear.

The Detroit News: Knife attack on German train severely injures 3 people

A knife attack on a high-speed train in Germany left three people severely wounded, the Bavarian Red Cross said Saturday. Police said a man has been arrested in connection with the morning attack.

The train, one of Germany’s high-speed ICE trains, was traveling between the Bavarian cities of Regensburg and Nuremberg at the time of the attack. A spokesperson for the Bavarian Red Cross, which had 110 responders at the scene, said the organization processed three “severely injured” people.

A 27-year-old Syrian man was arrested in Seubersdorf, where the train stopped after the attack, Bavarian state police told The Associated Press. The injured people came from the Regensburg and nearby Passau areas, state police said.

 . . .

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said the background behind the “terrible” attack was “still unclear.” 

 It's unclear when you decide not to look, isn't it?

Merkel Calls For A War-Time Level Of Unity Amongst The German Volk

From Reuters: Merkel tells Germans: Fighting virus demands war-time solidarity

In response to the proclamation, the Poles replied: "Nie tym razem, Suka!", and put their military on alert.

France surrendered preemptively.

German Job Security Through Offing Your Competition

It doesn't take a firearm to perform a mass murder, especially if you're willing to stretch out the time frame a little.

It seems one factory worker in Germany found the key to job security was killing off his fellow workers. Not exactly a how to win friends and influence people method nor a recommended one.

Since 2000, he's suspected of poisoning 21 of his fellow employees by contaminating their food with lead acetate, and was only caught when victim #22 saw powder in his sandwich and security cameras caught the fellow sprinkling it on his food.

Apparently no one made any connection among these deaths as lead acetate poisoning is hard to detect, but you would think that many deaths from one factory would cause someone to wonder if there was any connection.

Newsweek: MAN MAY HAVE KILLED 21 CO-WORKERS BY POISONING LUNCHES, POLICE SAY

Talk About Taking One For The (Progressive) Team

Chalk this one up to all-encompassing ideology winning out over bodily integrity, and progressive insanity winning out over rationality. This one really is both sickening and mind-boggling.

From Instapundit: OUT: STOCKHOLM SYNDROME. IN: MANNHEIM SYNDROME. Left-wing German politician who was raped by migrants admits she LIED to police about her attackers’ nationality because she did not want to encourage racism, and from Legal Insurrection: German Activist Lied About Rapists to Avoid Fueling Racism.

Yes, really.

As seen at the link, Selin Gören reported to the police that she had been robbed not raped and that it was done by German-speakers rather than Arabic-speakers because she would have hated for the attack to be used to point out that there's an issue with this batch of immigrants sexually assaulting people, because that would be, after all, racist.

She then accused another victim of being racist for daring to point out the identity of the attacker on a different occasion for a similar sexual assault at the same location, and it may very well have been the same attacker.

It used to be said a conservative was a liberal who had been mugged. In Europe that's no longer the case.

The European liberal now denies the mugging even took place and doubles down on the liberalism.

It's clear the left's hierarchy clearly has put feminism and indeed women's rights below that of Islamists and their rights to do as they wish, for it to be otherwise would be racist and not respecting the "immigrants" kultur, nicht wahr?.

Excusing and covering up a rape on the basis of the ethnic and religious background of an attacker (or any other basis for that matter) is inexcusable. For the victim of the rape to do so herself is unfathomable and a victory of the politically correct narrative over reality. I'm only halfway surprised that she didn't state that she herself had it coming to make the insanity complete.

It's a horrible but sadly not surprising to see the left, once proponents of feminism, excusing and covering up rapes as women are now ranked second class in the leftist hierarchy behind the Islamists.

Two Stabbings, Two Kinds Of Coverage, And Interesting Excuses

Today there were two stabbing attacks by Islamist on two different countries. One Got media coverage, the other did not.

The attack in Germany where one person was killed and three wounded received worldwide coverage, including in the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News.

The one in Israel where two elderly women were stabbed in a similar attack received no coverage outside of Israel.

Watching the Germans stumble over and trying to describe the attacks is rather interesting:

The assailant made “politically motivated comments” as he attacked, Ken Heidenreich, spokesman for the Munich prosecutor’s office in charge of the case, told The Associated Press.

And what was the politically motivated comment?

He said his office was investigating witness reports that he yelled “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”

The German police are trying to downplay and dance around the elephant in the room by claiming the man was simply mentally ill:

Police spokesman Karl-Heinz Segerer said the attacker "expressed political motivations" during the attack but didn't elaborate.

A 56-year-old man died from his injuries. The other victims were men aged 43, 55 and 58. Their names weren’t released.

The incident happened around 5 a.m. local time in Grafing, a Bavarian town east of Munich. Early reports indicate the man was not known to police.

Bayrischer Rundfunk, a regional broadcaster, said police were investigating eyewitness statements that the attacker may have yelled "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") while carrying out the stabbings, although that has not been confirmed.

Joachim Herrmann, Bavaria's interior minister, told the German news agency DPA that there did not appear to be an extremist motive and that the suspect may have mental health problems and issues with drug use.

Yet Another Reason Why You Can't Get A Decent Bagel In Berlin

Yahoo News: Rabbi beating sparks fury in Germany

The brutal daylight beating of a rabbi in front of his six-year-old daughter sparked furious condemnation in Germany Thursday, with some Jewish groups saying they feared a rise in anti-Semitic behaviour.

However, it is not the native Germans doing the attacks, at least not this time around:

The attack on the 53-year-old by four youths, thought to be Arabs, left him hospitalised and the Jewish community outraged, already up in arms over a court ruling in western Germany that outlaws religious circumcision. One youth smashed the rabbi in the face several times after asking him if he was Jewish, apparently because he was wearing a traditional head covering, police said. The assailants fled, but not before aiming death threats at the young girl, according to authorities, who have launched an investigation into the Tuesday attack.

Unfortunately such attacks against Jews in Germany by Muslims is hardly a rare occurrence:

Berlin rabbi Andreas Nachama told AFP that Germany had seen over the past few years "a rising hostility towards Jews due to the conflict in the Middle East."

"Verbal attacks against Jews have increased," said Gideon Joffe, head of the Jewish Community of Berlin, in an interview with local daily Tagesspiegel.

Meanwhile, the rector of the Abraham Geiger College in Berlin, an academic seminary for rabbis, warned his students against wearing the yarmulke, or traditional Jewish head covering.

"If you are no longer seen as a Jewish person, you are safer," Walter Homolka told Friday's edition of the Berliner Morgenpost daily.

I'd like to think American Jews' reactions in the face of similar attacks would be markedly different in both tone and measure.

After all, the last time German Jews decided to meekly weather things out thinking it can't get much worse as they kept proclaiming they were good Germans really didn't help much.

A pity Germany is finding such difficulties culturally assimilating such Muslim immigrants. Tom Kratman, Please Call Your Office, it's your forecasted storm rolling in on line 1.

A Suggestion as to the true purpose of the European Economic Union

If you look at the EU as a monetary union it never made a lot of sense, as the countries involved pursued radically different economic policies without a centralized control and countries ignoring poicy agreements and debt spending limits willy-nilly. Thus the tension today.

Hard working, parsimonious Germans set to retire at 67 are tied monetarily to, and paying for, spendthrift Greeks retiring at 50 on full government pensions.

After all, the Germans are rather fed up with bankrolling a Greek economy (and other problem European economies) that constantly spends more than it creates and exists mainly to provide feather-beds for state workers.

For example, the Greek railway system's debt is a rather stunning example. Greek rail has losses of over 1 billion against its $250 million income, each year, in, year out. This is, of course, completely unsustainable.

That Hellenic railway debt, at 5% of Greece's annual GDP isn't even counted as part of the Greek government's debt obligations causing the current crisis. But, as a state guaranteed entity the debt will fall on the state and add to its total debt as there's no one else to bail out Hellenic rail. Think Freddie Rail.

Now it looks like Germany and France will have to bail out the Greek's and Italian's profligacy or the whole Euro experiment, along with a few banks invested in PIIGS' bonds may collapse.

So a European Monetary Union isn't working out too well as it runs out of money.

However, if you think of the EU not as an economic union but instead as a union with a twofold purpose -

1. To constrain Germany and end its 50 year cycle of occupying France and
2. As a vehicle for reparations for World War 2

Then it all begins to make some sense.

Germany has been prevented from its natural pattern of kicking the French hither and yon, and has also been admirably restrained in not marching through Belgian territory on its way to to do so. Likewise, German tours de force of Eastern Europe have also ceased.

Goal #1 has been a rousing success.

Goal #2, The Euro as German reparations vehicle also seems to be promising.

After all, the Versailles reparations initially demanded were 785 billion in today's dollars, reduced down to $81 billion after the Lausanne Conference Treaty.

Today, Germany is going to be paying much more than that, and has already committed to $287 billion to the bailouts with likely further contributions to a 2 trillion big PIIGS bailout fund being necessary to make a full bailout.

Goal #2 looks to be well on the way to succeeding.

So who gets to be the one to tell the Germans that the European Economic joke is on them?

Better Late Than Never? Germany Decides To Investigate Nazi War Criminals 66 Years After WWII

USA Today: Germany reopens hundreds of Nazi probes

Nearly seven decades after the end of World War II, German authorities have reopened hundreds of dormant investigations of Nazi death camp guards in an eleventh hour attempt that could result in at least dozens of new prosecutions, The Associated Press has learned.
Special Nazi war-crimes investigators reopened the files after the conviction of former U.S. autoworker John Demjanjuk, whose case set a new legal precedent in Germany, said Kurt Schrimm, the prosecutor who heads the unit.

Given the advanced age of all of the suspects, investigators are not waiting until the Demjanjuk appeals process is over, he said.

"We don't want to wait too long, so we've already begun our investigations," Schrimm said.

It only took them 66 years after the end of the Second World War to reopen these cases. Talk about the wheels of justice grinding slowly in Germany.

Glad they didn't wait much longer, as it appears up until now that they wanted all the murderers to die peacfully in their beds before they face any justice.

One reason among many for this inexcusable neglect is that six million dead Jews don't vote in German elections, but millions of former Nazis do, and often.

Interesting Archaeological find in Germany

A Roman-Germanic Battlefield has been found.

CNN: German battlefield yields Roman surprises

Its not the site of the battle where the Germans in the time of Augustus when in 9 C.E. they defeated P. Quinctilius Varus and destroyed three Roman legions, but a later battle, in the third century C.E.

Archaeologists have found more than 600 relics from a huge battle between a Roman army and Barbarians in the third century, long after historians believed Rome had given up control of northern Germany.
"We have to write our history books new, because what we thought was that the activities of the Romans ended at nine or 10 (years) after Christ," said Lutz Stratmann, science minister for the German state of Lower Saxony. "Now we know that it must be 200 or 250 after that."

For weeks, archeologist Petra Loenne and her team have been searching this area with metal detectors, pulling hundreds of ancient Roman weapons out of the ground. They paint a picture of a highly organized, technologically superior Roman army beset by Germanic tribes in a forest about 80 km (50 miles) south of the modern city of Hanover.

The hillside battlefield was discovered by relic-hunters illegally searching for souvenirs of more recent wars near the town of Kalefeld-Oldenrode. One of them brought some of the items he found to Loenne, who works for the local government.

The artifacts are so well preserved that the scientists can already retrace some of the battle lines. Video Watch how the battlefield discovery could re-write history »

"We believe the Germans ambushed the Romans here, but the legions quickly fired back with catapults and archers -- and then it came to a massive man-on-man onslaught," Loenne said.

The items unearthed so far include an axe, still sharp after nearly 1,800 years; horseshoes; shovels; spearheads; and dozens of arrowheads for a Scorpio, a cross between a catapult and a crossbow -- the ancient equivalent of artillery.

Coins were also found, from the reign of the Roman Emperor Commodus (161-192 C.E.), which aids in identifying the time period of the battle. The coins, coupled with the Roman armor and weaponry they are recovering should help give a good estimate as to when the battle was fought.

A very interesting find, and as the archaerlogist quoted in the CNN article notes, one that will revise our knowledge of the extent and influence of the Roman Empire in the third century.