In a mad dash for the eighteenth Century, the federation of Catholic doctors, a German outfit, is claiming that there are three types of treatment for homosexual urges *:
1. Homeopathy
2. Psychotherapy
3. Pastoral care **

I don't know which burns more: the breathtaking stupidity or the bloody-minded intolerance.

* Since a major German news outlet ran a ( Read more... )

Exhibition at a Berlin gallery explores the cannibalism theme. Here are some of the pictures in the exhibition (14 pictures, one at a time, captions in English). I find some of them quite disturbing, though strangely compelling. They may not all be considered SFW. The exhibition apparently runs until 21 August.

I was going to post a commentary about ( Read more... )

I've written a lot about German plagiarism - ambitious people under pressure taking shortcuts with their all-important dissertation - so after this, I'll say no more on the subject. Probably.
It looks like the next scalp will be claimed soon: senior liberal politician and EU-parliament vice-president Silvana Koch-Mehrin has now been asked by her ( Read more... )

I have reported at length on the plagiarism scandal that cost Germany's former defence minister his PhD and his job (See * for a summary).
Now the university's investigation has found formally that he deliberately committed plagiarism, grossly violating acceptable research practices (here for English-language coverage) **.

Now we have a possible new ( Read more... )

Germany has until now had a system of secondary imprisonment for criminals who were considered to be at risk of reoffending. It was called "preventive detention". It could be included in the original judgement or retrospectively imposed while the prisoner was serving their sentence (and the time to be spent in preventive detention could also be ( Read more... )

The problem
My laptop is nearly dead*. We need to get a new machine as soon as possible (probably at the end of the month, earlier if it dies sooner).

What I need from my new laptop **
It needs to be able to effortlessly run standard office software - often running many programmes in parallel. I also want to be able to use it for entertainment (e.g. ( Read more... )

A group of protesters occupied a swanky department store in London recently. It was peaceful and good-natured. They broke nothing. They cooperated with the police, who nevertheless kettled and arrested them once they left the building. The issue is the deceit used by the police. (This article explains the story and shows some video footage.) *

Three ( Read more... )

 There were two regional elections in Germany yesterday. One of the regions, Baden-Württemberg, is a very conservative place and has been ruled by the conservatives for nearly 60 years.

No longer.

It looks like there will be a 'green-red' coalition between the Greens and the Social Democrats, headed by a green governor *. This is a first in Germany ( Read more... )

One of Mrs Xavier's colleagues died this week. Massive heart attack, despite being trim and fit. Nice chap: I met him last year ( Read more... )

Former German defence minister Karl-Theodore zu Guttenberg recently had to resign his post after being stripped of his PhD because of plagiarism *. If you ever read this blog, you'll know about this, as I've written about it extensively.

Having also resigned as an MP, Mr zu Guttenberg has now lost his parliamentary immunity. So the public prosecutor ( Read more... )