Cars,Travel and Military in Germany

2 German Soldiers were suspended after pictures surfaced (bild.de) of them playing with a skull in the desert. They posed for several shots, including one of the soldiers holding his penis up to the skull.  That part to me is just plain weird, but I guess I get they were “getting a little skull”  lol

I don;t see what the big International outcry is about. These are not humans, but human remains. There is a difference.  I don’t see what the big deal is.  We send these young boys to war and expect them to deal with the attorcities of death and war and act like perfect gentlemen.  They are just kids. Maybe this is their way of dealing with being stuck in a war to begin with.  I think they deserve a raise.

From Forbes - For years, BMW, Mercedes, Volvo and Saab buyers have taken advantage of European delivery programs, receiving sizable discounts by picking up keys to a car at its home factory.

What’s new is that carmakers are breaking ground on sleek delivery centers and piling on perks to lure autophiles into experiencing the newest car smell of all.

This summer the new BMW Welt - Deutsch for “world” - will open in Munich. The glass-skinned facility, designed by CoopHimmelblau (a cutting-edge Vienna-based architecture firm), will host up to 250 customer deliveries a day, with cars rotating on turntables as they’re introduced to owners.

Porsche is set to open an equally state-of-the-art tourist attraction next year as the focal point of its sprawling campus in Stuttgart, Germany. This museum will house the world’s most valuable collection of Porsches, with hundreds of storied race and production models on display.   Full Article

I just read an article about the new nav system that BMW has coming out on some select 2007 7 Series’.  The service is premium, which means you have to pay for it.  It’s called Real Time Traffic Information (RTTI) and offers timely traffic information and for the first time on any production vehicle sold in the United States.

Unlike other automobile manufacturers that charge a recurring monthly fee for RTTI, or require customers to pay for an additional satellite radio service, BMW has included RTTI as part of the cost of the navigation system for select 2007 BMW models.

With the help of Clear Channel’s broadcast network, customers no longer have to search for traffic reports on radio stations to be in-the-know about traffic situations. Up-to-date traffic information is compiled from a variety of sources including FM radio stations, highway-embedded sensors, video monitors on bridges and roadways, and local traffic monitoring centers.

The German Police said that a possible WWII bomb exploded while men were working on the Autobahn (A3). They were performing highway maintenance, and thier machine hit an unexploded device that could possibly have been a British or US bomb leftover from World War II.

Yeah, that makes me feel safe, weapons of mass destruction exploding on the Autobahn while I am going 170MPH.  That sounds pretty safe doesn’t it? This was just a few miles down the road from me!

Here’s the rest of the story in The Jeruselem Post.  Strangly enough they were one of the first to list the AP story.  I just did a search on Google and the report is only being found on Google news by two sources, none German.

Here’s an email I just got at work:

ALCON,  Please disseminate to all personnel.  A WWII bomb exploded on B26 where it intersects with Autobahn A3 near Goldbach on the east side of Aschaffenburg about an hour and a half ago.  A3 is closed on both sides.  Avoid travel on A3 until this clears up.  Several German news sites are carrying the story.  RNZ.de in one of them. 

USAREUR G3 AT. 

Germany’s “other luxury car” wants to finally muscle its way into the top tier.
Audi introduced its new $130,000 R8 sports car to the United States Wednesday with a drive down Manhattan’s Park Avenue and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg riding shotgun.

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I almost lost my mind today.  I have had a couple of house flies that have been acting sort of not like house flies at all.  More like Horse Flies.  I’d be sitting there quietly at my computer, and they would come right up to my face and buzz all around my head. Swat swat….I kept missing them.  Then he would go away for a few minutes, then sneak up behind me and buzz my ear (actually touching it) GOD is there anything more annoying?  bzzzzzt bzzztt.  It send chills up my spine thinking aobut it.

After about 3 hours of me jumping up with my paper trying to kill the little bastard, my dogs pretty much thought I was out of my mind.  It would be all quiet, dogs sleeping at my side, when I would get kamikaze bombed in the ear again.  I would yell out “GODDAMNED FLIES”  Then the dog would jump up and almost have a heart attack and look at me like I was out of my mind.  I finally gave up and decided to go to bed.  On the way up the stairs, the same awful fly attacked my ear again.  At that point I had to laugh.  I have honestly never seen anything like this….  I’ve never been attacked by house flies.  I am wondering if it is only the flies in Germany…….or if they got into something, or if they were just really hungry….

This is one page you will want to bookmark if you want to call the US from within Germany for really cheap.  It’s really easy, there are no catches.  After you read the rest of the instructions, click the link below.

Call the US from Germany    www.teltarif.de

When you get to the homepage, you will see a drop down list on the right titled “Tarifabfrage”  Click the drop down and choose USA (Kontinent)

You will be taken to a new page (see below image).  Scroll down and look a the table in the middle of the page.  Just choose your “Netzzungang” number.  Punch that number into your phone right before the stateside area code and number.

Since its launch in 1975 the reassuringly expensive BMW 3 Series has become the motoring icon of corporate greed – the middle manager’s chariot of choice. As integral a part of the upscale lifestyle as an espresso machine and exotic holidays, it is a cultural phenomenon and the new 335i Coupe should secure entry into folklore.

Most business-class custodians that restrict their journeys to our motorway system will simply never understand how good their car is. The real core virtues of the middle managers’ outside lane pounder of choice will simply stay a secret, well hidden behind the traction control button and comfy leather seats.  Read the full article

Externally, the car is unmistakably A3 but with a few minor mods. Of course, there is a revised front end, which gets dummy lower side grilles a la VW Golf GTI, the now-familiar deep one-piece main grille, now with an extra little grille below. All pretty predictable stuff, as of course was the styling of the original A3.

Uprated turbo gives plenty of all-round power

But don’t be fooled. With this uprated turbo, the S3 sports hatch can get to 60 mph in about 5.5 seconds – that’s more than half a second quicker than the Audi TT two-liter, despite its aluminum body. It is also a shade quicker than the 3.2-liter TT. Hmmm.Despite the larger turbo, maximum torque of 258 lb ft (350 Nm) is available all the way from 2,500 to 5,000 rpm, so this is an engine with bags of power at almost any speed. Mind you that is a feature of the other VW 2.0 liter direct injection turbos. Incidentally, this is a conventional four-valve per cylinder engine, unlike the five-valve units used in Audis previously. Still, the new engine clearly does the business.  Read more at Fast Autos

Time to modify the law a bit. BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government said on Monday a law penalizing people for displaying Nazi symbols might need to be changed after a court fined a man for selling anti-Nazi T-shirts and badges bearing swastikas.

The Nazi emblem appeared on the items in a circle with a large red line through it.

But a state court in the southwestern city of Stuttgart ruled on Friday it still violated German law because it risked making the hooked cross acceptable again.

It fined the 32-year-old distributor 3,600 euros ($4,560) in a decision widely condemned by German politicians over the weekend. The man’s lawyer has said he plans to appeal.

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