Ill Considered Policies in Action

[Fragbait]

I'm a Saab man myself.[...]And you can't beat the saftey and handling. Especially in New England winter. ;)
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I disagree.
Autobild 4-wheel-drive test

Here the summary of the test:

BMW X3: 4.8 out of 5 points
VW Golf: 4.6 out of 5 points
Land Rover Discovery: 4.2 out of 5 points
Audi A6: 4.0 out of 5 points
Fiat Panda 4x4: 3.4 out of 5 points
Hyundai Tucson: 3.0 out of 5 points

***caution: opinion subsequent***

Also, seeing that Saab just like Opel is only an unloved daughter of General Motors which isn't exactly known for building the most comfortable, drive-active and inexpensive cars, my resumee can only word different than yours.

In my opinion, these manufacturers are the best of their trade:

- Toyota if you want a durable, reasonably priced car
- Mercedes (or Maybach if you can spare the money) if you want a comfortable luxury car
- BMW if you want a sportive limousine
- Skoda if you want a cheap, solid car
- Ferrari if you want a sports car (this is really just about the image, though. Porsche, Lamborghini and limited-lot producers deserve to be mentioned as well)
- Mitsubishi if you want an offroad car (who won the Rally Dakar, again? Who?)
- I don't know, maybe Dodge or Ford or whatever if you're a fan of those fuel-killing monsters that are called Pick-Ups.

I must say, though, that I've yet to see another vehicle clamber impassable terrain approximately as quick and agile as the 'Wolf', a former Mercedes G-Class, changed over for the German armed forces, which I got the chance to race through rough terrain in my military service.

Of course one must not forget about the trucks.
Companys that won many awards and decorations over the years are:

- Mercedes
- MAN
- Scania
- DAF
- Renault
- Iveco

You'll quickly see that there are many countries that don't produce cars comparably good as some of the German cars. But there are only a few that produce even better ones.

***end opinion***


PS: I'm fully aware that, with the globalization and out-sourcing as well as the producing in low-wage countries increasing, the capability to tell what is German/American/English/French etc. wanes.

Greetings, Fragbait

[Occhidiangela]

Just makes me all the more thankful that I never want to have anything to do with Germany, ever. Including their cars. ;)
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May I suggests you take a second look at that? (Full disclosure: my first car was a 1978 Super Beetle that I worked on and loved dearly -- until she betrayed me with "electrical ghosts . . ." anyway, have had few troubles with German cars, ever.)

German cars are a taste you have or don't, and I'll expand that to observe that cars in general are very taste driven choices.

But as for Germany itself . . .

Don't deprive yourself of the experience if you ever have the opportunity. Germany is a very nice, albeit somewhat expensive, country.

If you like beer, comfortable trains, driving fast, some of the loveliest mountains in the world, medeival castles, beer, good food, good people, and did I mention the wonderful beer? For those with exotic tastes, Hamburg used to have a menu of world famous live sex shows: I am not sure if that is still true, and of course that line of entertainment is certainly NOT to everyone's taste.

I lived in Germany as a kid, and have since been there any number of times. I like Germany. I may throw rocks at sundry Europeans now and again over political opinioins, but IMO Germany is not to be missed. Nor for that matter, are France and Italy.

Occhi

YMMV

Occhi

[Occhidiangela]

Final Answer:

Was checking out Jerry Pournelle's web site, and ran across this snippet:

Subject: Prostitution and unemployment benefits in Germany

I may have a bit more information on the issue of the German waitress who had her unemployment benefits cut because she wouldn't take a job as a prostitute. I ran into a German legal academic at a conference in Edinburgh who assured me that the incident had happened, and provided the following explanation. The German electronic job bank is linked to the database of unemployment benefit recipients, who are required to provide information about their prior job experience. An algorithm is used to match unemployment benefit recipients with new job postings according the job characteristics described by the employer. The entrepreneurial brothel owner mentioned in an earlier e-mail was apparently the first brothel owner to use the system and when she did the algorithm matched the job to the waitress. A letter was then automatically generated informing her of the opportunity. There is a box to check to accept or decline the job on a form which must be returned. When she declined, the system automatically cut her benefits. To this point everything happened without human intervention. She then complained to human authorities who immediately recognized the match as an error and reinstated her benefits. This expains why the incident didn't generate much press -- it represented a technical system design problem and not a policy decision. Apparently the algorithm was also tweaked to avoid this kind of match in the future.

Norman Siebrasse Faculty of Law University of New Brunswick

Looks as though "the rest of the story" clears up the man against the machine matter.

HAL, would you please go back to circling Uranus?

Occhi

[jahcs]

Funny how selective reporting and sensationalism can create mountains out of molehills.

[Bob]

It seems absolutely ridiculous to me that individuals are being forced to work in the sex industry against their wills.

Particularly of note here is if someone takes the job simply because they're likely to starve to death otherwise, i.e. not a really considered choice how is it likely to affect them psychologically in 5 or 10 years time? Having sex with strangers for money isn't your average job.

...what jobs are okay to force people to work in (?)

None, <inflammatory opinion> A country isn't worth living in if 'it' believes that it can force it's citiziens to do anything, for the good of themelves or 'the nation'. People have the right do decide what they do with their lives (ignoring punishment meted out by the justice system, they 'chose' to commit a crime) and neither governments or individuals should be allowed to choose for them. </inflammatory opinion>


On a slightly different and historical note (I don't what to hit any nerves here, apologies in advance if I do), 60-70 years ago you'd have ended up in a concentration camp if you turned down 2 job offers, although this didn't apply to women as they were encouraged to not work. But these are different times and I'm certainly not advocating anything like that solution.

Reading further in the thread I see that the issue has been 'resolved' but it's worth keeping an eye on such policies to make sure that they don't go as far as making it illegal to turn down morally questionable lines of work.


-Bob