German Election

Yesterday we had a national election here in Germany to select a new government. Because every country does this differently, I'll just give you a short summary on how it is done here.

There are 20+ different parties of whom about 7 have a realistic chance of getting a seat in parliament (call the Bundestag). These 7 are called SPD, CDU/CSU, Greens, FDP, AfD, Left, and BSW. Of these 7, two (FDP, BSW) failed to get 5% of the vote , which is the cutoff level for getting a seat. Thus there will be only 5 parties in parliament. Think of the Left as ex-communists, SPD as socialists, CDU as conservatives, CSU as conservatives from Bavaria, Greens as idealists, and AfD as far right. There are 630 such seats, each representing a different geographic area. The percentages of the vote were:-

So a coalition is needed and because everybody refuses to side with the far right, the most likely coalition is conservatives and socialists, We shall see what happens after negotiations, but Merz (CDU) will be the next prime minister (called Bundeskanzler), he is the chosen one, unlike the situation in the USA :-

Now despite the separation of church and state, the press carefully took the following photo of our local representative (called an MdB) thus influencing the predominently Catholic voters to vote for him :-

He is the General Secretary of the CDU/CSU and thus Merz's strategist. Bit short in the height department but a nice bloke though. He will be tasked with selecting a coalition partner, a bit like this photo, which is of Thank God ledge of the north face of Yosemite's Half Dome ;-)

I just hope they choose quickly, this country is in a poor state (pun intended).

Comments(1)
Billions of Versions... wrote " It's sad that the German far-right went from 10% to 20% of the vote. Not that any of the Western countries should support the far-right after WWII, least of all Germany. " True. But it is openly declared far right. Better, I think, than the way the USA hides its latent fascism until AFTER their election ??? YMMV.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on February 24, 2025 permalink Comments Email

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Wolf, close up

The wolf problem here in Germany is getting even closer, as you see in this mobile phone photo. Due to the cold weather of the last few weeks they are really hungry, have entered suburbia, and can even be seen on peoples' terraces (am. decks). So look outside before letting your cats, small dogs, even children out, lest you never see them alive again. Wolves are carniverous! This one may be rabid too ???

This photo, from a national newspaper, was taken from near where my JSIL (junior sister in law) lives. So it's up close and personal. Beware.

I refer you to this blog entry, where I discussed this recently.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on February 18, 2025 permalink Comments Email

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Dresden remembered

It was 80 years ago on this very night in WW2 that Bomber Harris sent 772 heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) to drop more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city of Dresden in eastern Germany. The resulting firestorm destroyed more than 1,600 acres (6.5 square km) of the city centre. 25,000 people were killed by the area bombing. So bad that there were postwar discussions about whether the attacks were morally justified and Harris got much blame. However, he was "just following orders" from Churchill. But since the Nuremberg trials we know that this is not a valid defence for war crimes. Below: Damage as seen from the town hall next day.

If you have never done so, go read Kurt Vonnegut's tralfamadorian philosophy Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut was a POW in Dresden that night. A stunning scifi and anti-war novel based on that personal experience.

Comments(3)
Cop Car wrote " Thanks for the reminder, Stu. I’ve been wracking my brain on books to check out of the library. With my notoriously poor memory, now would be a fine time to re-read all of Vonnegut’s books." He was a great writer.
Petra (A) asked "ISBN ?" In English 978-0440180296 in paperback for ca €7.
Brian (UK) laughed "Clever juxtaposition of photos! Well done." And both from THAT bomb raid.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on February 13, 2025 permalink Comments Email

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AI Jesus?

I am an Atheist.

Nevertheless, I have some religious friends. This post is for them.

Most religious people believe an old man, living in a cool place somewhere above the sky, is real. This would be the Jews. A few, the Satanists, believe a virile young man, living in a hot place somewhere below the earth is real. More widespread are the Xians, who believe both are real. I believe all are imaginary, which makes it more complex. This post is about some new Xian experiments, so listen up.

At the Peterskapelle in Luzern (Switzerland), researcher Marco Schmid fed an AI LLM (large language model) with the New Testament (I assume the catholic version) and tested it with difficult questions, the aim being to simulate a catholic confession dialog. Sometimes the AI came up with texts that Schmid would have answered similarly, but sometimes it just churned out the usual rubbish, he said. Anne Purio, theology lady in Munster, criticicises the AI for its old-fashioned treatment of women, the AI has not adapted to modern times she said. The AI confessional used Chat-GPT to convert the spoken confessions to text then generate a text reply (for evaluation later) which was then converted to a voice reply, often very (too?) quickly. 60% of the 290 confessers reacted positively said Schmidt.

Of course the bible is subject to various interpretations. If Schmid had included the old testament and asked the AI for summaries, he might have got something like this

I suppose I will now have to say three Hail Marys and go sit in the corner with my face to the wall for a while?

Comments(3)
Billions of Versions... wrote " Biblegateway.com has 63 English versions of the bible and boatloads more in other languages." Does not surprise me. The KJV was a 17th century group effort re-editing 16th century translations of texts written in the 5th through the 10th century, hundreds of years after the events may have occurred. So, no witnesses etc.
Jenny (Ibiza) wrote "Confessions to a robot? No empathy at all?" So it seems.
Anon (UK) wrote "But nowhere in the Bible does it say priests are not to bum the choirboys!" Not true, Leviticus 20:13 tells us to kill all the gays, priests included. Their god hates the gays.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on February 11, 2025 permalink Comments Email

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