Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #50

 There will be a World Cup where Canada advances farther than Germany.

Not Another World Cup Post

I've been disappointed by the reaction to Germany's win at the World Cup.  In particular, it's the number of references to the World Wars.  No, I'm not offended by humourously touching on an emotional subject - I like dark humour as much as the next person.  It's just gotten tiresome.

There's only so many ways you can make veiled references to a major war.  It's gotten predictable.  And aren't there plenty of things to make fun of them for?  This is the country that dedicates a month to beer.

The same thing happens with France.  They have only a limited number of joke subjects that are rerun again and again.  They're rude, they like Jerry Lewis, and they surrender quickly in war.  That last one is especially galling, since comics can tell a France-surrendering joke and the audience will laugh, even though no one involved knows why France is associated with surrender.

(Bonus points if you noticed the "galling" pun above.)


There has been humour about Germans being humourless and over-organized, and they've actually seemed refreshing.  Also, Angela Merkel has been the but of some jokes, and really, her awkward-sternness can be pretty funny.  So there is hope for German ridicule.  I'll help out: sausage, Kraftwerk, the Porsche Panamera, reallylongcompoundwords, trying to pronounce "Goethe".

Mr. Roe, Throw Out This Wallet!

Well, I'm finally getting rid of my wallet. I've had other wallets that I've used for the proliferation of cards we've had over the years, but for the last twenty years, this has been my main wallet.

And here's what's so remarkable about it.

Yes, it says, "Made in German D. R." And if you know your twentieth-century geopolitics, you'll know that is the German Democratic Republic. And you'll further recognize that as the official name of East Germany. Yes, my wallet was one of the few products made during the eleven months between the fall of communism and the German reunification. I'm sure there couldn't have been much produced in that time. Say, a few hundred wallets, some watered-down beer and three-and-a-half Trabants.

But I appreciate the work of those semi-socialist workers and leather from The People's cows. Aside from the historic curiosity, I've enjoyed the irony of getting my money out of a communist wallet.

What's Powering That i3? Don't Ask

I thought I'd continue my theme of German environmental stories.  Today a newspaper article caught my eye.  Germany's government shut down half its nuclear power plants two years ago, after Japan's earthquake/nuclear accident.  And in those two years, CO2 emissions have gone up both years.  This comes in spite of the fact that Germany - where the Green party is a major political force - has generally made progress on greenhouse gasses.

See, it turns out that eliminating nuclear power doesn't cause the spontaneous creation of windmills and solar panels, nor does it cause people to suddenly use less power.  Instead, it forces utilities to replace that power supply with the quickest cheapest thing available.  That's coal, and it produces more CO2 than any other major power source.

For the last freaking time, environmentalists, you've got to get over your fear of nuclear power.  Yes, I know, it's expensive and technological, and - worst of all to the activist heart - not the perfect solution.  But it's the only workable, non-disasterous solution we can get now.

And remember, it's "right now" that's the important point here.  To illustrate, the German Green party's energy plan would move to 100% renewable energy by 2040.  Yes, in the teeth of environmental catastrophe, they're going to take decades to implement the ideal solution, all the while pumping out CO2 from coal plants, apparently.  Is that really any better than the suburbanite who's hanging on to his SUV right up until the day they can make the recharge-in-a-minute, thousand-mile-range electric model that will allow him to keep his lifestyle without any compromise?