Quantum Indecisions - 数量 犹豫不决
It is as if I don’t already have enough reasons to be embarrassed of my birth country. Like for example:
No, now the annoyance that is Tokio Hotel is starting to attract a following of confused, pimply teenage girls here in the US.
I bring you . . . Tokio Hotel - a collection of Germany’s finest. (You watch while I puke.)
Ah, only in Germany. Where everyone has a horse.
Here’s the scoop via AP/Yahoo:
An early-morning German bank customer had a bit of a shock when he found a horse already in line at the automatic teller machine in front of him. It seems the horse’s owner, identified only as Wolfgang H., had a bit too much to drink the night before and decided to sleep it off inside the bank’s heated foyer, police said Tuesday.
The 40-year-old machinist told Bild newspaper he had had “a few beers” with a friend in Wiesenburg, southwest of Berlin, and decided to hit the hay in the bank on his way home.
“It was late, it was already dark and cold,” he was quoted as saying.
Confronted with the lack of a hitching-post, he brought the 6-year-old horse, named Sammy, in along with him.
When a customer came across the horse and sleeping rider in the bank at 4:15 a.m. Monday, he called police, who then came and woke the owner up and sent him on his way.
No charges were filed, but there might be some cleanup needed: Apparently Sammy made his own after-hours deposit on the carpet.
I was browsing my morning (in this case mid-afternoon) web routine and came upon a disturbing article by the Associated Press on the conduct and training in the German military (scroll down for the article).
BERLIN, Germany (AP) — A video showing a German army instructor telling one of his soldiers to envision African-Americans in the Bronx while firing his machine gun was broadcast Saturday on national television. The video, coming after scandals involving photos of German soldiers posing with skulls in Afghanistan and the abuse of recruits by instructors, seemed likely to raise more questions about training practices in Germany’s conscript army. “We can no longer talk about an isolated case,” said Lt. Juergen Rose of the Darmstaedter Signal, a group of current and former army officers and sergeants who independently review military procedures. “Things like this don’t happen in the army on an everyday basis, but unfortunately in recent years there have been a number of comparable incidents.” The Defense Ministry said the video was shot in July 2006 at barracks in the northern town of Rendsburg and that the army has been aware of it since January. “We are currently investigating the incident,” said Florian Naggies, a spokesman for the army and Defense Ministry. He did not identify the instructor or the soldier, who are shown in camouflage uniforms in a forest. The instructor tells the soldier, “You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways … Act.”
The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English. The instructor then tells the soldier to curse even louder. The existence of the video was first reported on the home page of the German news magazine Stern on Friday and excerpts of the video were aired on the news television channel n-tv on Saturday. According to Stern, the 90-second video had been posted on a Web site used by soldiers to exchange private videos. A soldier who used the site alerted his superiors, the magazine reported. The video is the latest embarrassment for the German army. Eighteen army instructors are currently on trial for allegedly abusing and humiliating 163 recruits in 2004. Last year, newspapers published photos of German soldiers in Afghanistan posing with a skulls — including one who exposed himself while holding a skull.
After completing high school in Germany, I - like all German males - was faced with mandatory military service. Back then, it was either a 10-month enlistment in the military or a 13-month engagement in the alternative military service for conscientious objectors. After going through paperwork and an approval process, I was granted conscientious objector status. Now, just as before, I am glad that I never had to join this strange collection of idiots.
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