News from Germany - Swede arrested in Berlin for possession of swastika

Well when i move to Germany later this year, i will be taking my swastika decal sheets...i have been to many museums in Germany, and every model kit built on display has the swastika decals on....WW2 aircraft carried them, i make models...therefore i will show them, same goes where tanks and boats have them...

retaliation

Nice try, but one day too early.

Wasn't he the guy who sang that old Christmas song "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas"?

Indeed! However, sadly with the new German laws under discussion on fingerprinting and related biometrics in passports it is believable.

The Chaos Computer Club protested against these new moves to create so-called "secure" passports by collecting the fingerprints of politicians in favour of these laws, including the 'much-loved' interior minister wolfgang Schaeuble, and publishing these in their club magazine. Lovely stuff! Plus they also published documents showing how easy it is to do away with the so-called security on most of these fingerprint scanner thingies people use for "securing" their applications, computers and data.

It must be tomorrow already in Australia...

I was in Berlin in 1977-1981 and in '78 I built up the old Matchbox Bf-109E-3 in 1/32 and put it on display down at Spielvogel, which was one of the better hobby shops in town at the time.

About a month later I went down to get it and was informed it had been "arrested" and was in the possession of the 54th Precinct. I could go get it but would have to explain why I had put the nasty "hackenkreuzen" on it. Sheesh. I left it to the good officers of the

The owner complained about other things. He had a high value HO scale train from Liliput that was the 1936 version of "Das Rheingold" which had tiny swastikas on the sides of the cars as the DR markings of the time used them. The local equivalent of the JDL told him get it out of the window or the next day he would find a brick, broken glass and no train.

This seems a bit over the top but those people are SERIOUS about no swastikas on open display.

Cookie Sewell

PS if he is at the 54th have him say hi to my Bf-109...

April Fool... good one.

--- Stephen

It always is - when you're on this side of the globe.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

With the exception of the light in my workroom, I did that ten years ago - and haven't had to change any of them since.

I was using a 150W incandescent bulb in my workroom purely because I needed the high light levels. Such high power bulbs lasted barely three months. About a year ago I bit the bullet and went in search of a high luminosity CFT bulb. In the end I paid nearly 20 quid for 25W CFT bulb that is the size of a small watermelon. However, it provides the light I need, hasn't been changed in a year and may very well single-handedly save the planet! :-D

Mad-Modeller wrote:

Let's make that Australian "Earth Hour"- when we all turn out our lights to save the planet - occur simultaneously around the whole globe next year. I'll be quite willing to shut my lights off for a hour between say 11 am and 12 noon next year. :-D Seriously, how many people shut off their lights during that...and then promptly lit candles or kerosene lanterns for light? How much CO2 did that add to the atmosphere versus that saved by the reduction in electrical usage? At the very least, set it for the night of a full moon...and make it some sort of party; the Australians should be able to figure out that if they're half the people they used to be. Better yet, do what I did last month...change all the lights in your domicile to fluorescent rather than incandescent. At the moment, the only incandescent light in my whole apartment is inside the refrigerator. And I didn't do that to save the world - I did it to save on my electrical bill, plus the danger of falling off of a chair while trying to change the light-bulbs in the ceiling fixtures every few months. I dropped total watts needed to light my living room alone from 300 to 80. Hell, I could crank up every damn light in my apartment now for a total electrical usage of 175 watts, plus the 40 watt incandescent one in the fridge. And that evil thing's day may come soon also. It obviously needs a fast-on function, and that suggests a LED system for it. Now, _that_ overall concept implemented worldwide would make some sense in regards to saving energy, versus the "feel-good" Earth Hour. Once they get the bright LED lighting systems ready to go at low cost, we are talking about lighting my whole apartment at under 50 watts, plus changing lighting units around once every 20 years. So getting _that_ operation going ASAP is worth throwing a lot of money at, certainly more so than flying people back to the "magnificent desolation" of the Moon.

Sorry, just blowing off steam here, and pissed-off about where our tax dollars go to.

Pat

Christ, they have fluorescent bulbs of so high lumens out at our local Walmart that you would need to to wear sunglasses while illuminating your model-building area with them to prevent permanent eye damage. I may of mentioned these two key facts before:

Pat

on 4/1/2008 7:54 AM Pat Flannery said the following:

I would recommend a short cut pile black carpet (no woven commercial type or berber type) extending from your seat to as far as you can get it under the workbench. Small parts dropping on a woven type or hard surface will bounce 4 feet in any direction, seeking out a small crevice in which to hide. A short napped cut pile rug will keep the piece from bouncing more than an inch or two. Most pieces fall into your lap and between your legs, so it is also suggested that you wear a black apron that will extend from your waist to your knees. This will also protect your pants when you accidentally swipe that open bottle of paint into your lap. I suggest black because very few sprues are molded in black plastic.

model-building area; ideally the floor is perfectly flat seamless concrete, and painted flat white.

As mentioned, white's no good since most bare styrene is white. Black doesn't work either, as many painted parts are black. Gray is right out... I think we're looking at '70 style lime green or light puce paint schemes, guys.

it is to get down on all fours, put your head down sideways on the floor, and scan around the floor with a flashlight laid flat on it. This works very well, as anything sticking up even a few millimeters above it gets illuminated. This is no April Fool's joke, as I have done exactly this with some success (you left out the important 'cursing at the top of your lungs part', but probably just assumed it as a matter of course). Of course, I may very well be considered a year-round fool, but this technique does work...

Ah yes... worshipping the Mighty Leaping Heap.

We used to use the same technique on a Harrier squadron. Changing the Aden guns involved an awful lot of lockwiring, and some of it would always manage to escape onto the floor. After panelling up and carrying out a tool check, we would then carry out the procedure you describe to find any errant pieces of lockwire. To an oustider it looked like we were worshipping the jet!

That's my favourite modelling technique.