Yeah well this has been all over the primetime news shows on german television. They all aired with the warning to not use IE / switch to a different browswr.
While this might not mean much to the average user of HN (read: tech literate) - i think it IS quite a big deal for "ordinary" computer users.
I think such warnings, from an official government body no less, will be heeded by many who don't know much and "just want to be safe"
Meanwhile MS choses to tell people that it "is not that bad" and that "not many users will be affected" and no word on when a patch is coming.
This despite the fact that all current MS OSes (xp,vista,7) are exposed - is a PR disaster for MS.
Obviously MS is downplaying it but on the other side the BSI creates a huge stir to create the image that it is useful in someway and to avoid becoming an obscure agency that is mentioned only in passing in a couple of tech news articles. That's not to say that what they are doing is bad it's just that their are two sides and the ordinary computer user probably has still no idea what's going on.
Yes, but our unions are particularly good at not working towards the overall benefit of the ecosystem. All they want to do is take-take-take and screw everyone else. Just look at the number of cities in Californian that are caving-in under the pressure of the ridiculous pensions unions have managed to extort out of the idiots running the show.
This is pretty important for the pirate party. Nordrhrein Westphalen is not only the largest state by population. It is also very important politically and economically. The pirates entering the state parliament at 8% will greatly solidify their political base.
This will give them a much needed boost when gearing up for the general election in 2013.
Also Angela Merkel's CDU suffered a crushing defeat at only 26%, despite her "heir apparent" Norbert Röttgen running in the state.
The state will now be governed by a leftwing coalition of SPD and greens. In all, this is a good day for the national opposition in germany. Germany is shifting to the left, along with the rest of europe.
Arguably.
While it is true that the SPD has departed from its roots as a socialist working class party they can still be considered "leftwing".
I don't want to go into too much detail here but Hannelore Kraft has run on a pretty leftwing platform of social policy (offering free childcare, as but one example).
When compared to american politics... pretty much every german party except maybe the FDP can be considered "leftwing" or even "socialist".
In the NRW elections, between the Linke (which are a lot more popular in the eastern part of Germany), the Pirates and the Greens there's 21.6% that's arguably further left than the SPD which, given that and the fact that it's got about 39% of the vote here, might well be considered centre-left these days when looking at the relative spectrum.
"Liberal" in Germany roughly equals "libertarian" in the US, they tend to be much more moderate, though. So it's not like they're exactly Ron Paul libertarians.
This has been a source of endless confusion for me in the past when discussing politics with american friends. Took me surprisingly long to figure it out.
The word "liberal" over the past century has experienced so much meaning drift in the US that it is basically antithetical to the original meaning. Places where it has experience less drift will thus have an opposing meaning to the US meaning.
This is not a criticism. Meanings change over time, it's what they do.
(Incidentally, this is why it's very silly to either attack or credit political parties in the US with things they did more than about 30 years ago, or perhaps even 20. The parties have shifted around a lot and traded a lot of issues. They're dynamic coalitions of convenience, not great, century-spanning statements of ideological purity.)
Along with "more taxes, more red tape, more corporate control" one also sees things like environmental regulations. Whether supporting environmental regulations is liberal(I want the right to enjoy my back yard without smog from his car and without sludge from your factory) or authoritative(so don't pollute) is a topic that is up for debate, and shouldn't be lumped in with "corporate freedom."
I'm talking about government regulations in general. Environmental regulations are, by definition, authoritative because the government enforces that law. It's very hard to create laws, eg the right to enjoy backyard without smog, as even people breath out pollution. It could be argued that by creating a law prohibiting smog in your backyard, it's far more authoritative than a law to regulate the levels of smog.
It doesn't mean that authoritative laws are bad, really. Some laws are mildly authoritative (anti-littering) to heavily authoritative (anti-terrorism). People's positions tend to be relative to the country they're in. For example, a fiscal-centre-liberal person in USA could be seen as a fiscal-far-liberal person in France.
Did the term become bastardized by US? I wouldn't be surprised. Being a conservative doesn't mean what it used to mean either, and it has been taken over by "neo-conservatives".
Since the early 20th century in the U.S. it's meant something like "social liberal", market-oriented but in favor of a welfare state, more like what the SDU is today. And the opposite of "conservative" on issues like same-sex marriage, abortion, etc. Vaguely the same meaning of "liberal" that applies to the UK's Liberal Democrats. Actually not that far off, in terms of policies, from the meaning of liberal used by the German Freiburg-school ordoliberals, and their idea of the "social market economy".
You can even participate if you are not a party member.
And that's what their long term vision also includes:
Large scale, direct, participation (using digital means) of many people in the political process.
They call this concept "Liquid democracy"
well i have bad news for you.
the only party in germany that is really pro free market capitalism, the FDP, is on its way to obscurity due to severe policy missteps.
All the other parties embrace, as we call it here, "social capitalism" to varying degrees.
So, in germany, you mainly have the choice between several "left leaning" parties.
When measured by US standards, most our parties are "socialist".
As much as definitions are concerned, also US has only socialist parties. The first problem begins when your parties only discuss about further spending and never about expense reductions (as in US too). The other problem begins when the State thinks it has the right to decide on things that should be left to the individual, for example, it makes absolutely no sense that in Germany shops are mandated to be closed on Saturdays (less of this in Us?).
Finally, as there is no pure socialism/capitalism, I believe we should look at few simple things. For example, effective taxation (together with mandatory helthcare and pension) on the individual should not be 50% of his income (and it is in Italy, for example); public spending should not be 50% of GDP either. Let's start from here...
I think you use the term socialism wrong. Socialism means the workplace is owned by workers in some fashon. What you talk about are Statist policys. They are often confused because what people often mean when they say Socialism/Communism is State Socialism USSR style.
I agree that we need to throw away this rules and lot of burocracy. I think the BGK is a nice system if you want to have a social system and a pension system without giving the government real controll of the people (Gov. part of GDP would rise but the controll would be a lot less).
Taxation needs to be simpler, the current system is all about spezial intresst. Its a difficuled field but there are many ideas.
It seems to be by US standards every state that collects taxes is socialist. After all, that means the government decides what to spend part of your money on. Why is it more socialist to spend the money on healthcare than on a new motorway?
I am not from US, but indeed I do see as socialist any State that collects taxes. Socialism is a broad definition, I just like to use it like this because it shows that the problem is the continuum and not the extremes. And for me the main continuums to look at are spending and taxes on GDP. Those should be lower than 50% (arbitrary number from my side, but it makes sense).
