My Grand-Grand-Grandmother offered herself to soviet soldiers so they didn't rape her daughter (around 30 back then) and grandchildren (2-10). The Soviet War Memorial in Berlin is nicknamed "Memorial of the Unknown Rapist".

My Grand-Grand-Grandmother sacrifice didn't help and therefore one of my ancestor is a raping soviet soldier. And if you learn that your Grand-Aunt just can't remember being raped because she was too young...

It’s frightening how easily people can lose their moral compass, and behave so disgustingly.

The Russians didn't lose their moral compass. They never had one.

I disagree. You are NOT poor just because you end up without money at the months end.

My brother is an perfect example. He earns A TON of cash every month. Nearly as much as I, my fiance, my Dad and Mum combined.

And still he lives from payday to payday without any reserves. Because he can not handle money.

He eats in restaurants at least ten times a week. At least twice in highest luxury restaurants. He has leased four different cars in three years, none less than €2000 per month. Lifes in an absurdetly huge penthouse. Buys his girl friend so much bullshit she gave me a €5.000 collier because she ran out of space and I drove her home after parties a couple of times. But still he asked Pa and me several times for fuel money at the end of the month.

See, if he would live like I do he could live two years from one months earnings.

So you think I am poor I guess?

Nope. I own a huge plot of land. I am going to build my own house and I am talking about a nice big house made from stone at the gates of Munich where land is expensive and houses are even more expensive. I have paid generous amounts of pension insurance. If I would stop working in five years when I am 35 I would be a made girl and could live from my savings although on a low level.

I watched a documentary on DWTV about a similiar phenomena in Germany. There was a specific sort of bread, a cheap one, which stood fresh for two weeks if packed well. During the pandemic it suddenly stood fresh for NINE MONTHS. The finder of that bread was some sort of forensic specialist and because during the pandemic crime pretty much vanished he had too much time and explored that phenomena.

So, did they put more chemicals into the bread to keep it more fresh?

Actually, no. wholemeal bread stays due to the acid produced by the leavening during baking which is a natural process. Actually ALL bread stays in theory fresh "forever".

But. If it gets contaminated with fungus spores then those can slowly break up acids in the bread. Well, the final verdict was: Before the pandemic most bakers were so fucking dirty and contaminated that they pretty much only delivered fungus-contaminated bread. During the pandemic though the bakers were required to sanitize their work space and themselves a lot more thorough. And that made the bread free of fungus.

The forensic specialist has kept another bread for over three years now. It is as fresh as the first day. No chemicals involved, just wrapped airtight into a plastic foil.

Recently I watched "The Man in the High Castle" and had a good laugh at the stupid story. Like Germany would have ever been able to conquer the US and put it under Fascism rule. No. When America goes fascist it will do so out of its own choice, by its own politicians, elected by their own population. Like my grandpa once said:

*"The proletariat is so stupid that they vote their own executioner into power just for the vague hope of seeing their hated neighbour in front of them in the queue for the gallows."

"Das Proletariat ist so verblödet dass sie ihren eigenen Henker an die Macht wählen nur aus der vagen Hoffnung zu sehen wie ihr verhaßter Nachbar vor ihnen in der Schlange vorm Galgen steht."*

Edit: "Not Qualified" is not the right wording. Because Qualification only plays a secondary role. It is all about the licence.

In Germany carrying a gun without the right licence would be illegal possesion of a firearm.

But wait, even if you have a licence you can get fined for illegal transport and handling of a firearm.

Carrying a conceiled small sidearm without a special permit is big trouble. Transporting a firearm without a locked enclosure and not seperated from the ammunition is also a serious offence. At home you need a locked container. All in all it got so complicated that my Dad stopped storing guns at home. He sold one and put the other into the gun club. The club is really helpful, we can lend legal transport containers and for guns which we are not allowed to move in public they offer transport services for a small fee, usually that means a police officer moves the gun in his free time using legal transport containers in exchange for a beer.

Classic case: Someone dies and you find a loaded pistol in his inheritance. You bring it to the police. You did three offences: Carrying a conceiled firearm in public, carrying a firearm without proper container, carrying a loaded firearm. The legal way would have been: Calling the police to retrieve the firearm. To be honest, the state attourney usually closes those cases rather quick as "minor incident without criminal intent" but you still get a serious talk.

There are some exceptions for old historic muzzleloaders which are often fired at historic events without bullets. We don't have those so I don't know barely anything about those rules.

In Germany we have on average more privately owned guns than most US states. Still... we had just TWO mass shooting in 20 years.

Why?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08GbT5ZEs08

In short: You have to qualify to own a gun. Assholes don't get guns. And by fullfilling the laws to own a gun you actually earn respect in your community.

I am member of a German gun club where the local population, the regional police and a couple of NATO soldiers train. It took me nearly one year before I even was allowed to touch a loaded gun, all through my 14th year I was basically just taught how to clean and repair my rifle, how to handle it, how to NOT use it, only then how to use it. And after ten months I was finally given a single bullet.

I am now 30. Nowadays my family owns and shares a Sig Sauer 200, locked inside the gun club. Everyone except my Mum shots around 25 bullets per month, once a year the whole gun club repeats basic training which includes mental health checks.

And after basic training we have special events. For example six years ago a local NATO garrison was massively downsized and so they offered us to use up their overaged surplus ammunition. I got to shot pretty much anything from 9mm to 7,62mm for basically free - we collected money for the victims of a local house fire so I put €50 into the collection.

Did I ever shot a gun outside the gun club?

Actually: Yes. When I was in the US I joined my Uncle on duck hunt. He was like "ok, hold the big rifle while I show you how to shot a duck using 12gd bird shot." - he misses, I aim and shot the duck mid-air with a .308. I didn't know ducks could explode, but yes, they can. I paid with a badly aching shoulder, I wasn't used to those powerful cadridges any more. He looked angry at me and grumbled the plan was to eat the duck not turn them into fine mist. The other three ducks he left for me to shot and wondered where I had learned to operate a gun like that.

When I told him a US lieutenant taught me to operate exaclty the same rifle in my gun club he was like "WTF?". I might mention the lieutenant immediatelly settled down in my town after his duty was over because he liked Bavaria so much and wanted his kids to grow up in a less crazy nation.

Funny fact: As an US citizen it is INCREDIBLE HARD to open a foreign banking account. My local German bank simply rejects ALL US customers except when they want to invest a million or more. Because the paper work is HORRIBLE. I on the other hand can easily open a banking account in Finland, Spain, Great Britain or Greece. With some limitations even in Canada, Japan and Mexiko. For an US citizen: End Boss Level. Some even have fantastic service and interest rates.

And another thing were Europeans are better. Paying "fines" for overdrawing your banking account are illegal as are "fines" for failed withdrawals. We had them in the past for a while but the courts smashed that scheme to pieces. On the other hand, often banks do not even allow overdrawing. You hit Zero? End of the Line. Good Customers often get a credit up to some thousand Euro. I have specifically asked to limit my credit frame to €100. Because even while I don't pay a fine for "overdrawing" I still pay absurde interest rates for overcharging - around 0,03% per day = 12,5% per year.

Then there is another thing, two of the five largest banks for end users in Germany are "cooperative banks" which means they are not allowed to make a profit. They are practically owned by their customers. They aren't exactly "the banks with the best interest rates" but overall a lot more relaxed than the competitors. On the other hand... they don't accept every customer. Mostly small businesses and farmers.

Also all banks are forced to cooperate a lot more than US banks which is why credit cards and their often absurd costs are mostly unknown around here.

Edit, I just checked if my bank also offers to refill my daily account from my other accounts if it reaches Zero... in fact it DOES. For Free.

This is interesting: The Blocker works on Windows-x86-Firefox but NOT on my Linux-x86-Firefox or any ARM-Device. It seems Google holds back very carefully not to overblock. Can someone try if the Browser-Identifier does influence this behaviour?

Just to let you know, if you use uBlock you can expect it to adapt to this new shenanigan pretty quickly. Also I think €120/year are ridiciously overpriced. Ask me about €30/year and I might consider it for a second.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind ads on Youtube if they were less per hour and less obnoxious. But no, every 12 second video now has an ad leading to it.

Not to mention, if I would pay for every single Video service the usual 8-15€ I would pay like €1000 per year and THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Give me "pretty much everything" for €100 per year and we can talk. My offer stands.

I expected the Orville to be a funny homage to Star Trek. For a short time it was just that. Actually a randy one with too much toilet humor. But then suddenly they became serious SciFi. Which I consider a bold move and mostly but not utterly a successful one. And in hindsight, it would have been hard to deliver good SciFi-Humor for more than one Season except if they went the Futurama-Path.

The part of the funny homage to Star Trek nowadays has been taken by Lower Decks. Humorwise it beats everything Orville had ever offered.

Orville is good. Not great but worth watching. They had some AMAZING episodes with depth and ideas among the best ST-Episodes. But they also had a lot of mediocre episodes. Still Better than ST-Discovery for sure. Even surpassing ST-Picard. Which is something Seth can be proud of.

Orville started when there was no Startrek and no serious Soap-SiFi at all (The Expanse is something different).

For me it is "Startrek when Startrek wasn't" and basically revived the Franchise it wanted to make fun of.

I like it.