The ironic thing is that this happened in Cologne, a city that was perhaps most vocal in it's support for migrants and it's denouncement of Pegida. I can't imagine this would have ever taken place it the wild west former DDR.

I wonder if these crimes together with the comments from the Mayor could finally effect the divorce that feminists/leftists need from Islam. I've never known such strange bedfellows. Somehow, I suspect not.

You only say that because to you have an aristotelian definition of truth. That's fine but it's not the only one. As I am sure that you don't come on EF to talk philosophy, I leave you and Aristotle. Enjoy, he was a nice guy. So I've heard.

Your primary teacher lied to you when she said that pictures speak a thousand words.

More than that, Köln is the city where the present mayor won an election after being attacked, apparently, by a Pegida supporter, who later turned out to be a BND operative.

A woman who will set up to get herself stabbed to win an election is capable of anything.

Really? Where did you find out about that?

In his head.
But give the guy credit for entertaining German readers on a bank holiday day.

The story is doing its rounds in Germany. I've been told this at least 5 times in different situations by different people in Germany (including by a second generation and well-integrated Muslim). But I guess seeing things become more true when they're in the Internet:

http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschla...ter-Szene.html

https://derhonigmannsagt.wordpress.c...ahlter-v-mann/

The guy has never worked for the BND (that's the German version of the CIA looking at foreign countries). He is claimed to have been an informant, NOT an operative, of the Verfassungsschutz. It makes a difference if you occasionally rat out your friends for money or if you are a fulltime professional...

Verfassungsschutz is the equivalent of the FBI dealing with any form of extremists. He was very active in the extreme right wing and there are plenty of informants for the police there.

Ironic, her solution to the problem was "One arms length". Imagine measuring that distance up in the air.

Others call for more mass surveillance, sort of like a police state.

Sorry, Germany is a fun topic.

The most stupid thing is that she asks women to take precautions. These precautions wouldn´t be necessary if there weren´t those idiots behaving like that.

Brush up your German or get new glasses.

1. You missed the question marks in the title(s) in the press.
2. You give the GREEN PARTY all the credit for telling the truth all of the sudden, which is like Thatcher buying Mao's red book.
3. V-Mann means Verbindungsmann, hence a guy from the nazi scene more or less informing authorities, NOT an infiltrated secret agent of anybody obeying authorities order by any means.
4. You fail to mention that the guy was a real nazi, and real hardcore one, not the kind of nazi obsessed with grammar or whatever some English speakers call "nazi" nowadays.
5. You've heard of "correlation does not mean causation", here is a new one for you: "connection doesn't mean causation either".

Just enjoy the fact that to Amogles, die GRÜNEN are now officially recognized by him as a trustworthy objective source of information.

__________________
Es wird nichts ausgelassen, um mich hier herauszuekeln. Ein Lehrbuch. False accusations and attacks continue. There is no stopping righteous people when they are wrong.

Brush up your consistency.

Not too long ago Faltrad gave me red blobbies for failing top understand that the term Nazi is reserved for people who were actually NSDAP members. He got very angry at me for using the word to refer to a guy who was very obviously of a certain leaning. But Faltrad obviously doesn't hold himself to the same standards that he holds others. Funny.

Oh, personal attacks and straw man fallacy after conspiracy theories. Lots of love to you too.

Or she made any damn effort to exclude idiots from coming over it might have had some effect.

Pointing out inconsistencies aren't personal attacks, or else we are all guilty of doing it, including yourself, Faltrad, the (self-appointed) logician/philosophy god. Was that a personal attack, huh!

thanks for confirming the straw man fallacy after conspiracy theories. We agree on 2/3, I can live with that. Lots of love to you too. But I can't marry everybody so you'll all have to take my love without the wedding night.

I think the point is valid though, the reaction to her comments has been that it is easily interpreted as dispersing the accountability onto the victim to a degree. By issuing guidelines such as walking at arms length or in groups through the streets of a city, it implies if you are not doing this you are therefore not following the guidelines which have been prescribed to make you safe, i.e. part of this at least is now you're fault. To me, it does seem at best very clumsily worded by the mayor of Cologne and the reaction is not just from the normal left or right wing loons, its from genuinely level headed commentators or groups.

Also, it's not really a common sense thing. Walking down an unlit ally at 2am in the middle of Brixton is, by societies standards, not a good thing to do if you are a lone female. Getting off a train and walking out of the train station through the city centre should not be an area of society where such safeguards such as moving by group only have to be adhered to. If they do, then something needs to be done because that isn't the right level of safety in society for a developed western city I would say.

Perhaps the most completely fascinating thing about this whole horrible event, is the way people are so scared of actually making statements because of the fear of being branded racist, or anti islamic or whatever is wished. If it was a bunch of baldies like me then the message "1000 bald men attack women, the disgraceful thugs" would be totally accepted as a statement on the event, even as an eye witness. But such is the delicate state of affairs right now, that even when the head of Police of Cologne says they looked like they came from North Africa there is a deafening torrent of "racist!" hurled back. Unless there is a level playing field, whether the people are bald, black, white, green, blue, christian, muslim or whatever, then the situation will only get worse with one side being accused of racism while the other accuses of inaction because of political sensitivity.

V-Mann is noit the same as Informant. An Informant is somebody who grasses on their mates for cash. A V-mann is somebody in who the police place trust and have a long-term relationship. A V-Mann does more than tip off the police about small stuff, but keeps them informed on the bigger picture.

So this attack was carried out, at the minimum, by somebody in whom the police had a high level of confidence.

Did you actually have a rational point you wanted to make? And for all these hearts and love bites, who is gaming this thread again? Anything with gravitas to add?

I saw this story and couldn't help but shake my head. We flood the EU with thousands of people who really have nothing to lose with absolutely no inherent respect or even real basic understanding of the country or culture they're going to... and then scratch our collective heads when problems such as this emerge? No prizes for figuring out what's going to happen.

It's amazing how with cabinets full of supposed experts, the governments can't forsee basic stuff like this happening. In Germany's case, it just goes to show how one persons crusade (Mad Merkel) can override basic common sense.