germany

Chris Knight's avatar

Okay, I watched Vice-President J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich conference.  And he was absolutely spot-on.  

The same European countries we fought for and lost lives for are now becoming as oppressive as the Soviet Union was.  There is for all intents and purposes no more freedom of speech in places like England and Germany.  Dare to speak against the government and you’re declared “far right” and subject to arrest and imprisonment.  Even posting a meme on X/Twitter is grounds for prosecution.  Say something about the massive problem with criminal migrants coming into the countries and that’s also considered “hate speech”.

And then there are the people who have been arrested for the “crime” of praying in public near abortion providers.

Europe has taken a terrible, terrible turn for the worse and is becoming the very nightmare that George Orwell warned about.  Why should the United States tolerate ...

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It’s taken an act of legislation to wipe out the longest word in the German language.

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, beef, Germany, German, language, words
“You vill EAT your
rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
undt you vill LUFF it!!”

“Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz” – a 63-letter long title for a law “for the delegation of monitoring beef labelling” – has been removed from official use in Germany.  The law, passed in 1999, regulated testing cattle for bovine spongiform encephalitis: also known as “mad cow disease”.  The European Community is dropping recommendations for testing healthy cattle for the disease.  And with it goes… that word.

I bet spelling bees are something else over there…

Tip o’ the hat to Scott Bradford for spotting this!...

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Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin

The Knight Shift today is remembering and honoring the life of an army officer from Nazi Germany.  And for good reason…

Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin was born in July of 1922.  More than two decades later at the age of 22, he was an infantry officer of the German army.  Ironic, since both Ewald-Heinrich and his father hated everything there was about Nazi ideology (the elder von Kleist-Schmenzin had even tried to arouse support from western countries for a coup against Hitler).

In January of 1944, Ewald-Heinrich was approached by Claus von Stauffenberg for a bold plan: to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a suicide bombing.  Von Kleist-Schmenzin volunteered to take the place of a wounded officer.  However the attempt had to be cancelled because Hitler kept postponing the event which would have him placed near the bomb.

Then came the following summer, and von Kleist-Schmenzin became involved with the now-famous July ...

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That’s not the most weird headline I’ve ever made for a blog post, but I must say: that it’s certainly among the most interesting! It’s not often that the worlds of archaeology, astronomy, chemistry and history come together so boldly.

The statue on the left, dubbed “the Iron Man”, was found in Tibet sometime around 1938, by Nazi scientist Ernst Schäfer. It’s thought that it represents the Buddhist god Vaisravana. The statue isn’t terribly large but given its all-metal composition it is rather heavy. Schäfer thought it would be of particular interest to his superiors because of the swastika symbol carved upon its chest (Schäfer’s expedition was to research the origins of the Aryan race). So the statue was packed up and sent to Germany and eventually found its way into the possession of a private collector.

The statue was likely carved in the tenth century, at most. But ...

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Forty-three years after it first aired on American television in 1968 as part of Star Trek‘s second season, “Patterns of Force”, the episode that had Kirk, Spock and the crew of the Enterprise looking for a Starfleet historian and finding an alien civilization modeled after Nazi Germany instead, will be broadcast for the first time tonight on public television in Germany.

Why hasn’t “Patterns of Force” been widely aired (it was made available as a pay-per-view episode previously) until now? The official reason is that later in the episode, the Nazi era is described as “the most efficient society” in Earth’s history. But widespread consensus is that the extreme hesitancy regarding “Patterns of Force” mostly has to do with what remains the shocking and startling image of James T. Kirk in an S.S. officer’s uniform (along with Spock’s similar attire, before being captured and tortured in the ...

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Robert Chojecki, a fella out of Herne, Germany, went to his doctor because he had been suffering severe headaches for a year and didn’t know why.

So his physician took some x-rays of Chojecki’s head… and found a bullet nestled between his skin and his skull.

It had been there for five years. At the time Chojecki, now 35, thought that he had either bumped his head or been hit by a firecracker during a New Years celebration. But apparently the 22-caliber bullet came from a bullet that had been fired during the same festivities (note to self: stop firing guns at parties).

Read more about the heady case of Robert Chojecki here, including video depicting the x-rays and the bullet!...

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A few days ago this blog forwarded along a story about a full-sized costume of a Covenant Elite from the Halo video games. If that didn’t stun and impress, maybe this one will…

A dude in Germany has built a costume of General Grievous from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (as well as being featured in numerous other Star Wars works of fiction). Yeah you read that right: a General Grievous getup. And it not only looks incredible but it moves incredible! Check it out!

This guy has a longer video here that has more detail of the costume.

I bet he’s gonna get slammed with requests from people to loan Grievous’ help on Star Wars fan films 😛...

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There is a girl who can discern different Star Wars characters while blindfolded by putting them in her mouth and sucking on them.

I never want to have to write a summary sentence like that again.

Sophia Heesch, a teenager from Germany, was recently on a TV show in that country called Wetten, dass…? (translated into English it’s “Wanna Bet…?”) demonstrating her… talent. Sophia, without looking at it, can be given a Star Wars LEGO minifigure and just from sucking on it and feeling with her tongue, can tell whether the minifig is Han Solo or Yoda, and even more unusual characters like the ASP Droid.

Here is the clip of Sophia showing off her amazing powers!

Wetten, dass…? is a German game show, so apparently Sophia won some money. Remember that next time you yell at your kids for putting toys in their mouths 😛...

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It was built by the East German government in 1961.

It completely encircled what was then West Berlin.

It was one of the most tangible symbols of the Cold War.

It was declared by communists throughout the world that the wall would last forever.

I know of no better additional commentary that can possibly be made besides this picture of the chunk of the Berlin Wall that I have owned since 1993…

Read more about the Berlin Wall on Wikipedia....

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