Helmut Scvhmidt 2014. Image: Kleinschmidt/CC-BY-SA-3.0

Uninvited double call to one "wise statesman" and one "wise observer"

Now that Helmut Schmidt, after having helped to shape my life for more than forty years, is in the ground and the last strains of the state ceremony have faded away, I may dare, as perhaps the first historian, to say something less good about the dead man. I’ll say it frankly: I never liked him, the chancellor of the concrete era – the wiser and holier he became in old age, the less. Why not? This can be found here. The dogma I want to contradict is: Helmut Schmidt was wise, "the last statesman" (according to Der Spiegel), the last politician you could trust. Peter Scholl-Latour has been dead for a year already. Die beiden waren politisch uneins, aber in der Haltung ahnlich. The dogma about the latter is: Peter Scholl-Latour was an expert on Islam and a wise, because completely independent observer of world events.

"Let’s stop Geschev, the new club". Image: F. Bull

Bulgaria’s prosecutor general-to-be declares opposition the mastermind of data GASP

Low-cost airlines bring more and more foreign travelers to Bulgaria’s capital Sofia. Even tourists who do not speak Bulgarian heard one word echoing down the central boulevard Vitosha last Monday evening, and they understood it: "Mafia, Mafia, Mafia!" chanted about two thousand demonstrators in front of the court palace. They protested against the election of the Deputy Prosecutor General Ivan Geschev as the future Prosecutor General, which, in their opinion, was imposed by the ruling class. In their eyes, he represents the rule of law hijacked by the oligarchy in Bulgaria, as does the acting Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov. The Balkan country lacks strong convictions of corrupt politicians, and police and prosecutors are suspected of arbitrarily criminalizing opposition circles.

YouTube and Co. – Our weekly telepolis video check

With a "Alright, dan" Let’s start today in the Kuhle weekend. And then recommend the immediate taking of our antidepressant of the week. Nonely different, the record-friendly blodish conspiracy theory does not endure, which an anonymous caller is short in the WDR broadcast "Domian" intended. And as the sender sat.1 is nothing blodeless enough to not be sent, sab this "Flat Erdler" a few days later in the breakfast television – this time not anonymous, but with full name. And the trained chef once again paid his stories of the world domination of reptiloids. Now only one appearance is missing at Markus Lanz. Videos and an emported text for this spinning there are here.

Speaking Spinner. Worried US burger and trump supports have set a video and a mesh page online, which should show how it looks after the victory of Islam in Germany. Pretty duster underwater, especially for beer drinkers. Both can be found here.

The recent tsunami in the Solomon Islands is a reminder of a particularly destructive form of natural disaster that could well have occurred on our own doorstep

Early on Monday, the Solomon Islands were hit by a tidal wave, a tsunami, which caused severe devastation along the coasts of the western provinces of the South Pacific island nation. The trigger was a seaquake. The event has shocked the entire region, but it is also a reminder to coastal states around the globe of the dangers posed by what is happening at the bottom of the oceans of our troubled planet. Particularly on the Atlantic, where historical memories of past disasters are very weak, there are practically no precautions so far. This is all the more alarming because, in addition to plate tectonics, climate changes can also trigger tsunamis.

In the Solomon Islands, on Tuesday (local time), it was possible to have a general idea of the extent of the devastation. Several tsunamis with heights of up to ten meters hit the coastline in the west of the country. The waves were triggered by a seaquake of magnitude 8.1 on the open Richter scale, just off the coast of New Georgia, one of the islands of the rocky archipelago. At least 13 villages and larger parts of the town of Gizo, located just 50 kilometers from the epicenter, were destroyed. The number of dead was given as 24 by Radio New Zealand on Tuesday morning. Many people are still missing.

Fatih Mosque, Bremen. Image: HanFSolo/CC BY-SA 3.0

…and the Islamization of Muslims in Germany. The influence of the Turkish government on the Muslim communities in this country

The introduction of a prasidial system under the rule of Turkey’s autocratic President Erdogan is imminent. With the removal of Prime Minister Davutoglu, the way is open for a dictatorship à la Erdogan. This will lead to the downfall of a once prosperous state on its way to modernity.

Autonomous vehicles are supposed to be safer because they strictly follow rules, but in the human world, rules are there to be broken

How does the traffic on the streets work? There are rules that most drivers more or less follow, but sometimes break when they think it’s necessary. Sometimes you drive quickly across the crosswalk even if a pedestrian is about to enter it, you drive across the intersection when the light is yellow in order not to have to brake sharply, or you cut off a cyclist or another car while entering the intersection. The speed limits are followed laxly, especially in 50- or 30-km zones. And then there are the mania, distractions, moods and risk-taking. Everything ensures that the traffic runs amazingly well, but there are still accidents.

These were largely avoidable, according to the advocates of autonomous vehicles, if not wetware with all its differences and error rates, but optimized software takes over the wheel. There will be no more laziness and lack of attention, the rules will be perfectly observed, accidents can be drastically reduced. However, only if the various technical control systems are compatible and always updated, do not contain programming errors, are not hacked, do not crash and react immediately if a subsystem such as wheels, turn signals, brakes, cameras, etc., fails. are damaged or break down. And if they are able to incorporate the driving and reaction of humans, as long as some are still (allowed to) steer their car. Problems can arise when there are masses of autonomous vehicles on the road (Asimov’s rules for the asphalt jungle).