Open Thread

Hurray an open thread,
Now I can repeat something that I wrote about a couple weeks ago that I think no one saw because it came so late in the open thread season.
I was really really pissed off when the US government blew up the Nordstream pipeline and caused my winter heating costs to go up 400 or 500 %. But more recently I have learned things that make me take that in stride. First of all I learned that house insurance in Germany, at least for now is way way below what it is in the USA. I imagine that there is quite a bit of variation in costs for house insurance in the USA but I pay 300% less than family members in MInnesota. And my property tax rates are way way lower than property tax rates in Minnesota. These two things alone are way more than my winter heating bill.
OK the price of gasoline is double in Germany compared to the US. But European cars are much smaller and Europeans do not have to travel as far to get where they need to go. So Germans probably spend less on transportation. Then sales taxes are much higher in Germany. But despite that prices for food and consumer products are not higher in Germany. Food is now actually cheaper and when I moved go Germany in 1996 food was more expensive except for dairy products.
Health care bills are much lower in Germany, There is no college tuition. Though college is still usually a costly undertaking because people need to pay room and board and defer getting a paid job for several years longer than someone who goes to trade school.
Houses cost more to purchase in Germany. But the house that you buy is really a house not some kind of toothpick structure with cotton stuffed in between the toothpicks, covered in chalk.
Now if we can only break free of our colonial chains I wonder if the Russians will understand that many Germans were never on the side of NATO and those that were, were tricked. It may also be to late to rebuild German bridges to Russia as the Chinese may not allow that to happen. But if it did the Germans could slide in to the collapse of industrial civilization with more Deutsch Marks than any of the other G-7 countries. No doubt about it.

The term security sector keeps popping up along with military intelligence (is that an oxymoron?).
What that means is violent suppression of dissent rather than Linus’ blanket. (For those not born in the Fred Flintstone era, Linus was a character in the Peanuts comic strip who always carried his security blanket around and sucked his thumb).

The so called security sector means the police, the military, intelligence agencies, etc. What a perversion of language. It’s all a 1984 redux these days.

Ok. So I’ve been thinking about the tracking of dissidents and data storage on the same. One might think commenters on a relative obscure blog and the blogger himself might be flying under the radar, but I’m not so sure.

A few years ago I think it was, I relayed the following anecdote here.

Upon my return to the US after a couple of years in Europe the immigration dude who greeted me started asking questions while staring into a computer screen. The one question I remember is Did you ever live on Water Street? And alarms went off while I hemmed and hawed searching for an answer. I was like, well maybe it was in Seattle, I’ve lived in so many places I forget. And I kept trying to get a glimpse at the screen, but impossible of course.

The dude put a marker in my passport and told me to go over to a nearby conveyer belt unit where a lone agent stood in attendance. Then he said, Welcome back to America, Mr Larsen. Didn’t sound sincere or friendly.

At the nearby conveyor unit the agent opened my luggage and tossed each item contained therein one by one onto the belt while nonchalantly asking questions about where I’d been and what I’d been doing and what’s this anyway, holding up a package of nori seaweed. He went through everything and I spun tales, explaining how I was a chef who traveled through Europe doing culinary research, mixing truth with fiction. I had a knife case and other paraphernalia to back up my half truths and lies. (It was 1992 and you could still pack that stuff.)

Finally he let me go, leaving me to repack my luggage.

As I hurried down the concourse to make my connecting flight I kept thinking Water Street, Water Street, where did that come from? Then it hit me. It was the address I used to check into a Marin County motel in the late 80’s when I was looking for real estate for a friend who formerly employed me as a family prívate chef. He was what might be called a person of interest to the Feds.

It was definitely a wtf moment. Also, my knees went weak when I recalled that I was carrying some Amsterdam hash in my pocket. Those were obviously easier days. Point being if they had me nailed like that 33 years ago when surveillance was primitive relative to today . . . Well, what to say?

Better watch out where you go/ watch who you know/watch what you say/watch what you do/Big Brother’s watching you . . . (Lyrics from the band Spirit circa 67).

Gawd, this account makes me sound like I’ve got a criminal mind. But no. On that score I’ll quote Bobby D:
To live outside the law you must be honest.
Cheers!

And most Germans get 30 days of paid vacation a year. And most Germans get a nice Christmas bonus, most of the time. In recession years they wont get one. In Germany unions are supported not attacked.
Despite these temporary advantages once the collapse of industrial civilization starts Germans will starve as fast as Americans. They may even die of heat stroke faster as Americans are much more likely to have air conditioned homes. Though those American air conditioners may be running sporadically once the electrical system goes down. But
Americans are also much more likely to have a back up electrical generator at home, which might get them through one last hot summer with AC.