Link Banana

Blake Hounshell points to a handful of images of the DAX — Germany’s stock exchange — in decline that all feature the same woman. The Independent even interviewed her.

World opinion diverges enough to shock Blake Houshnell. While the greatest number of people appear to believe that it was Al Qaeda, Israel and America also won big votes. Israel was most often blamed by Arabs, with Egypt showing 43%, Jordon 31, and Palestine a (mere) 19.

Curiously, Mexicans were the second most likely — at 30% of those polled — to blame the United States. Turkey (36%) was the first, Palestine third at 27, and Germany fourth at 23.

Strange Maps highlights a study of the genetic commonality of Europeans. Finland’s a striking outlier. Other observations:

The extent of genetic variation is greater north to south than east to west. This may be a result of the way Europe was colonized by modern humans, i.e. from the south, in three successive waves of migration (45,000 years ago, where before there had only been Neanderthals; 17,000 years ago, after the last Ice Age; and 10,000 years ago, with the advent of farming techniques from the Middle East).

Yugoslav genetic variation is quite large (hence the big pink blob), and overlaps with the Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, Czech and even the Italian ones.

There is surprisingly little overlap between the northern and southern German populations, each of which has more in common with their other neighbours (Danish/Dutch/Swedish in the northern case, Austrian/Swiss/French in the other one).

The Swiss population is entirely subsumed by the French one, similarly, the Irish population almost doesn’t show any characteristics that would distinguish it from the British one.

Ryan and Leo were born on the same day to the same parents. But one looks “black” while the other looks  “white.”

(via BuzzFeed)

Speaking of removing the heads of dead dictators… the Hilter featured in the recently-opened Berlin branch of Madame Tussauds was decapitated recently. As a MetaFilter commenter points out, Hong Kong’s Hitler was similarly decapitated in 2004.

This idea, like all great ones, seems like something a seven-year-old dreamed up:

Dietrich Stein, of the Ruhr-University of Bochum, wants to free up the roads by diverting the Ruhr’s freight underground. If his plan succeeds, the road network at the surface will be duplicated by a system of tubes below, inhabited by small vehicles that steer themselves automatically from factories to shops or even to individual homes.

Germany has no medal for military valor, and hasn’t had one since the end of World War II.

The traditional Iron Cross is tainted by association with the Nazi era. Hitler awarded his version of it—complete with a swastika stamped in its centre—to thousands of those who committed atrocities across Europe. But advocates of the Iron Cross argue that the honour predates the Third Reich by 120 years. It is also a familiar sight on German military vehicles and planes around the world.

A petition to parliament to revive the Iron Cross last year gathered more than 5,000 votes—and some attention from the far right. The Central Council of Jews in Germany objects strongly to its revival. A more gentle approach is being tried by the Association of Military Reservists. Ernst-Reinhard Beck, its chairman, says the important thing is not the Iron Cross, but the principle of a bravery medal to bring German troops into line with the soldiers from other countries serving alongside them.

The government has accepted in principle the need for a gallantry award, but balks at an Iron Cross. Instead officials are working on a proposal that would add a “bravery” category to the bronze, silver and gold levels of the existing Ehrenzeichen (badge of honour), which is usually given for long or distinguished service. Defence sources say the idea could be approved by President Horst Köhler by the end of the year. But what would the Red Baron think of it?

Though I doubt it would happen, such talk’s got to worry Beijing at least a litle.

“If there continue to be no signals of compromise, I see boycott measures as justified,” Mr Poettering told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper ahead of a debate this week about Tibet at the European parliament.

The idea of European politicians boycotting the opening ceremony of the Olympics was mentioned last week by French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, although he later backed away from the idea.

This Europe.view column starts with an interesting premise:

IMAGINE Nazi rule in Germany surviving for decades, with Hitler undefeated in war and succeeded on his death in the early 1950s by a series of lacklustre party hacks who more or less disowned his “excesses”. Imagine then a “reform Nazi” (call him Michael Gorbach) coming to power in the 1980s and dismantling the National Socialist system, only to fall from power as the Third Reich collapsed in political and economic chaos.

Imagine a shrunken “German Federation” suffering ten years of upheaval, before an SS officer (call him Voldemar Puschnik) came to power, first as prime minister and then as president. Under eight years of rule by Herr Puschnik, Germany regains economic stability, largely thanks to a sky-high coal price.

It goes on to assert that current claims that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was legal and that the Katyn massacre was no perpetrated by the Russians are tantamount to Holocaust denial. Interesting stuff, whether or not you agree with it.

The Economist’s Charlemagne column has a fun way to judge Europe and understand it in contrast to the rest of the world. It’s an entertaining thought, even if sometimes feels like a stretch.

In the hunt for a distinctive European identity, consider toy brands, such as Denmark’s Lego or Germany’s Playmobil.

These firms may be dwarfed in America by titans like Mattel, but in Europe they are cultural giants, vying for top spots in markets such as France and Germany. In their designs, business models and philosophies, they offer a striking snapshot of European aspirations, anxieties and foibles. (Tellingly, toy bosses see Britain as a case apart, closer to the American market in taste, and showing what they call an “Anglo-Saxon” fondness for heavily marketed novelties tied to films or television.)

This is slightly more academic than most stuff I post, but it’s also rather interesting. Tony Judt reconsiders the history of the Shoah — that’s the Holocaust to most — on the western psyche and people in general.

Meanwhile, we should all of us perhaps take care when we speak of the problem of evil. For there is more than one sort of banality. There is the notorious banality of which Arendt spoke —the unsettling, normal, neighborly, everyday evil in humans. But there is another banality: the banality of overuse—the flattening, desensitizing effect of seeing or saying or thinking the same thing too many times until we have numbed our audience and rendered them immune to the evil we are describing. And that is the banality— or “banalization”—that we face today.

The Economist has an interesting story about the new dynamics within Germany’s rapidly-growing Jewish community.

By the time the Berlin Wall fell, Germany’s Jewish community had only 30,000 ageing members and was dwindling rapidly. Today it is the third-largest, and the fastest-growing, Jewish population in western Europe, after France and Britain. Between 1991, when the country was unified and immigration rules relaxed, and 2005, more than 200,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union emigrated to Germany. (At the same time, more than a million emigrated from the former Soviet Union to Israel and about 350,000 to America, leaving only about 800,000 behind.) In some parts of Germany, immigrants—usually referred to as “the Russians”—make up 90% of the local Jewish population.