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.
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".
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.
Well it is certainly true that there are countries in europe that have even more renewable energy than we have.
The other countries in europe that have more renewables than we have are mostly smaller countries that don't have the population or industrial output that germany has.
As you can see there germany has made BIG advances in the amount of renewable energy produced, as well as its overall share of energy consumed.
My point was:
* Germany was 20years ago pretty conservative about energy, relying mainly on coal, gas and nuclear.
Then the green party came into the political landscape and now
* We are on the forefront of converting our highly industrous economy completely to renewable energies. No other country in europe has increased the amount of renewabled energy produced by 5x in the last 10 years alone. At this rate, we will be overtaking even the smaller countries that may have more renewables than we have now.
* We are the only country of this size and economic gravitas that is fully committed to quiting nuclear.
* We have very strict environmental protection laws, with environmental protection even enshrined in the national constitution , more so than in other industrous european countries (yes there's always switzerland or other small countries that are nominally "better" at this but you can not compare their impact or structure with large countries such as germany) See also: http://www.goethe.de/ges/umw/ein/en5099932.htm
* Gas is more expensive in germany than elsewhere in europe (again there might be exceptions) because of "ecological taxing" that was proposed by the green party
So, in all what i wanted to say was:
Germany has changed a great deal due to the green party in the last decades. Where once we were very conservative about ecological ideas, we are now at the forefront, if not the sole leader, in many of these areas.
And that is,to a large degree, thanks to the greens because they have put those issues on the agenda again and again - and that way changed the political discourse at large.
The pirate party wants several steps in enabling more citizen participation.
First, they want to make government more transparent so that the people actually have all the information needed to make informed decisions on their hands.
No longer do they want to accept that crucial legislation is often negotiated behind closed doors and only announced once everything is already sewn up.
Also the contracts the government has with the private sector need to be made transparent. We need proper open data portals. There's a lot of things do to in this area alone.
Second,
they want more votes on specific political issues on the regional, state and federal level. Those are currently only possible in very limited form (they are non binding for the government in most cases), and not at all possible at the federal level.
Third,
their longterm vision includes a concept called "Liquid democracy" where basically everyone has the opportunity to have a voice in the political process. This will be facilitated using digital means.
Specifically software called "adhocracy" / "liquid feedback" is being developed for this.
The pirate party in germany already uses this system for their internal decision making.
It's a carefully balanced system comprised of direct voting on issues, and delegating voting power to representatives.
So i don't see the danger of inviting mob rule with the pirate party.
As i see it, they want to open up the political system to more direct participation while keeping it stable enough to guarantee basic democratic freedoms (like minority protections)
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".
Reading the entry - it isn't.
It's basically the same thing.
What is different in germany, though, is that the discussion here revolves around forcing private sector enterprises to have specific (government set) quota of women in their leadership (or else be punished by the law).
Affirmative action in the US seems to revolve more around not negatively discriminating against women when making hiring decisions, but not forcing government set quotas on companies.
I can't quite imagine the US government interfering with private enterprise in this way.
Absolutely. Entering a government after they first get into the parliament would do them no good. They first need to establish themselves, before they can govern.
I think it's pretty unlikely that they fully get into all that "gender politics" stuff like the greens.
That has several reasons - mainly the see themselves as more "liberal" (it has a different meaning here than in the us) than greens, and also they are not as female-dominated in their ranks as greens are.
I think it's unlikely that they'll embrace a full blown "Frauenquote" (funny how there isn't an english wikipedia entry for it ^^), because the discussion inside the party (i am not a member) seems to be going in a direction they call "post gender".
I think this post gender idead, by and large, is a good one.
I hope they'll pursue this path more, bringing an approach of true equality to politics instead of the "gender fights" other left-leaning parties like to put on the political stage.
I disagree that greens did not achieve much.
They have completely changed the political discourse in germany.
After 30 years of the greens being in the Bundestag, we now have the largest percentage of renewable energy in europe (>20% of our energy already comes from it), even the most conservative of parties now subscribe to quitting nuclear energy altogether (7 reactors have been shut down already, the rest is to follow until 2021) , we have the strictest environmental laws in europe, and on and on.
I would say the greens have been very successful by any measure.
I'm from germany, and have voted for the pirate party in recent local elections.
I'd like to add a few things:
1. The german system of government is very much different from the US. In the US you have by-and-large a "winner takes it all" voting system.
In germany, by contrast, we have a system of proportional representation. That means, winning 10% of the popular vote nets you 10% of the seats that are on the line in your voting district.
That's why we currently have 6 parties in our federal parliament ("Bundestag") - where you have only 2 parties in congress.
2. Although this is "just" a poll it isn't meaningless. The pirate party has been steadily building up momentum in the last 2 years. They now are the 5th largest party by member count in germany.
They have also scored surprisingly high wins in two recent regional elections, and are set to repeat those gains in the two upcoming elections.
3. The pirate party runs on a platform of systemic reform. They want copyright reformed to be more compatible with the 21st century. They want a reformed educational sector with more use of modern technology in the classroom, as well as improved structures (i.e. more freedom to pursue different educational models).
They also want to reform the political system at large, by having more citizen participation in political decisions. They want more public votes on specific issues, as well as more transparency (For example: ACTA was negotiated in secret and only announced to the german public once the details were finished. They pirates strongly oppose such intransparency.)
This helped them to capture the votes of young, highly educated people.
Many, but by no means all, from the "informatics" sector.
They have also mobilized many first time voters, and re-energized many people who had formerly abandoned voting.
4. What's currently also helping them is the bad state of our government (the governing coalition is in disarray), their inability to answer to the challenges shaping our future, their corruption (our head of state recently had to resign in shame), their detachedness from concerns of everyday people. This greatly helps them to get the vote of people who are disaffected with the "established" parties and who are ready to give those "political youngsters" a chance.
It's by no means guaranteed, but they seem to be on the way of becoming a serious political force in germany.