iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 3h

Ha! Leveled up: Chaperone an “Our hometown” after-school club & take a bunch of 6-year-olds into • the back of the post office (where mail is sorted) • the secret shed of the roads department (where snow plows and traffic signs are stored) • a bank vault • … It’s like being a local KIKA Checker!

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Even as a kid, I was skeptical of countries whose governments felt the need to put on such displays. To whom were they trying to prove their legitimacy? For the deeply hated East German regime, this seemed pretty obvious: pretty much everybody. For the UK? The victims of colonialism?

A soldier wearing a gray parade uniform and a helmet and carrying a carbine rifle stands guard in front of a columned building.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Ach ja: Und das wird besonders für jene von uns furchtbar sein, die eben keine Konservativen sind, sondern klar links der heutigen CDU stehen.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Rechtsstaat, Westbindung, EU, Bürgerrechte: alles steht zur Disposition und wird auf Jahrzehnte nicht mehr Teil des politischen Konsenses sein.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Im Prinzip ist heute die Adenauer-Ära zu Ende gegangen. Wenn dieser grauenvolle Spuk in 15, 20 Jahren vorbei sein wird, wird es keine (demokratische) CDU mehr geben. Das politische Spektrum in Deutschland rechts der Mitte wird rechtsextrem sein. ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Die CDU meines Heimatlandes hat heute das Ende des demokratischen Konservatismus in Deutschland eingeläutet. Mit diesem Wahlergebnis wird es auch für einen AfD-Ministerpräsidenten, gestützt von Teilen der CDU, reichen. Und ohne Brandmauer werden die Rechtsextremen die CDU zerreiben. ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Closer to where you are, the Sorbian people consider themselves to be a (minority) nation (within Germany), which does have a national flag, a blue, red, and white triband.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Bottom line: Not all nations have sovereign states. Some well-know examples include Scotland and Wales, both of which have universally acknowledged national flags, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The shown flag was the national flag of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Republic of Hawaii. If there are people who still consider themselves to be members of a Hawaiian nation, there is an extremely high likelihood they will consider this flag to be their national flag. ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

You don’t appear to be getting Yair’s point. People who believe all these crazy conspiracy theories START from a position of antisemitism.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Hmm, interesting. This was my job (many moons ago) as a student worker. I would say that having a high degree of cultural fluency, both in navigating German bureaucracy AND in speaking in the same accent as local bureaucrats, were more important to my role than German language skills per se. 🤔

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

So Baja Blast is supposed to be just Mountain Dew, Blue Powerade, Sprite, and ice, no?

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I hope you won’t be disappointed when the time comes. It’s really gone down here in the U.S.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

My kids' favorite place for Pommes 🍟, Jägerschnitzel, and Currywurst? Why, the Badrestaurant, of course! 🏊‍♂️🍽️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

+++eilmeldung+++ Elif Eralp geht, wenn keine Autos kommen, bei Rot über die Kreuzung +++eilmeldung+++

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Man kann es nur hoffen, dass der Groschen in der CDU endlich fällt, dass es mit Merz nicht weitergeht.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

> and wanders all over campus ✍️ … make sure to bring the smoker *cart*

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

“$” was a typo, I’m assuming? Cause, if you went all the way to America for an oil change, you still got ripped off. 😅 These are coupons from my dealership (from this year.)

$35, $50, and $80 coupons for oil changes

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Come on, you know what to do! It’s #Herbstfeuer season anyway.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Nur ein Datenpunkt, aber … Meine 13-jährige HASST KI. Wenn Mitschülys sie benutzen. Aber wenn Lehrys damit arbeiten, noch mehr. Ich weiß, LK in 🇩🇪 sind überlastet und oft ausgebrannt. Aber überlegt euch bitte trotzdem sehr gut, wie viel Vertrauen und Spaß am Lernen ihr so zerstören könnt.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Ponder this for a sec: Trump’s 🇺🇸 approval numbers, 31%, are at a historic low. Which means they are still about 3 times as high as Friedrich Merz’s 🇩🇪 (8-13%.) Unbelievable. (Both numbers are well deserved, of course.) #ThrowTheBumsOut

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Das muss man sich mal vorstellen: Trumps Zustimmungswerte liegen bei 31% – historischer Tiefstand für alle US-Präsidenten und Trump selbst. Und damit sind sie etwa noch 3× so hoch wie Merz’ Zustimmungswerte (8-13%). Unglaublich.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

übrigens anscheinend nicht, siehe seine nahezu grenzenlose Israelsolidarität.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk ist ein trauriges Beispiel dafür, was passiert, wenn eine prinzipiell völlig richtige Ablehnung von Totalitarismus in einen obsessiven Antikommunismus umschlägt, der nichts anderes mehr sehen kann oder will. Um universelle Bürger- und Menschenrechte geht es ISK dabei ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

And while processing times have gone up (a bit) under Trump, the basic process remains unchanged (at least for folks from countries Trump didn’t illegally “ban.”) So why does Germany insist on a process that is vastly slower and vastly more inefficient than even in fucking Trump’s America!?

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

3 June (yes, about 5 weeks later): a 15-minute interview at a regional U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office, where the interviewer went over the form with me and took my photo+signature 28 June (still the same year): the festive and very nice oath ceremony, which made it official↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

This is so fucking embarrassing. #fremdschäm This is the timeline for my 2024 U.S. naturalization: 28 March: Submit the simple online application form, incl. uploaded photos of the only documents required: • Green Card • marriage certificate • kids’ birth certificates This took all of 20 minutes!↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

(I’m just commenting about the possibility of early dismissals in the U.S. specifically. This Barlow person is certainly full of it.)

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

to have contingency plans in place (perhaps with neighbors who can fill in), because our district certainly doesn’t. When buildings close early for developing weather, buses take students home and then the district shuts down. 🤷

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I’d say. Buses will take students home as usual (just early.) It’s not a problem for us, since my spouse and I both work from home a lot (and are close by when we don’t), but I’ve often wondered how parents who can’t rush home at a moment’s notice deal with this. I suppose schools expect parents

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

FWIW, our suburban Pennsylvania (highly rated) public school district has no problem dismissing students early with as little as an hour’s notice. It’s usually when potentially dangerous weather develops later in the day (say, torrential rain, ice, or snow.) It happens at least once or twice a year,

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Ach herrje. Ich hoffe, am Ende war alles OK!

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Und wildfremde Leute haben ganz interessiert zugeguckt!

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

equipped to fight back. And that’s what concerns me most of all.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

with me: “The problem with Germany isn’t that it has neo-Nazis. All countries have them. The problem with Germany is that there is no GCLU” (i.e., no German equivalent of the American Civil Liberties Union.) So if and when fascist authoritarianism rises again in Germany, we are not at all ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

as the cause of all our woes? Also no? Well, then we don’t know what to do! So as a result of this way of thinking, post-war Germans never developed the inclination or the institutions to defend humand and civil rights everywhere. I forgot who said it (it was years ago), but it really resonated ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

to this view) have no understanding of and no tools to combat any other kinds of far-right extremism. Does the AfD have thousands of uniformed paramilitary troops (like the SA) marching through the streets and beating up socialists and communists? No? Do AfD leaders condemn “the Jews” ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

subscribe to this view) have no understanding of and no tools to combat any other kinds of far-right extremism. Does the AfD have thousands of uniformed paramilitary troops (like the SA) marching through the streets and beating up socialists and communists? No? Do AfD leaders condemn “the Jews” ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

possibly learn from Hungarians, Poles, or, God forbid, those uncivilized Americans on how to combat far-right populist extremism. But wait, it gets worse. By focusing exclusively on the singularity of both the horrors of Nazi Germany and Germany’s post-war response to it, Germans (who subscribe ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Germany from the rest of the world. Through this lens, what’s happening in Germany has nothing to do with MAGA, Putin, or the rise of far-right populists throughout Europe. And since (post-war) Germans are also exceptional in preventing a repeat of fascism, there is nothing at all we could ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

But I’m afraid things won’t get better as long as the German establishment keeps insisting on seeing this only through the prism of “German exceptionalism,” which has been post-war Germany’s foundational myth. “German exceptionalism” (my term) uncouples anything that happens or has happened in ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Yes, seeing that (only thinly veiled) Nazis could once again win elections in Germany (and in my home state, no less) is horrifying. And I’m stupefied by the lackluster response of Germany’s political establishment to this threat, the gravest German democracy has faced in 80 years. ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

When I explained what we'd been smelling, she didn't believe me at first.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

The first time we spent a day in Manhattan after pandemic restrictions ended, my wife kept complaining about the ubiquitous smell that didn't let up as we walked a few dozen blocks. "I don't remember New Yorkers smoking this much ... or that cigarettes smelled like that", she'd muse. ↘️

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Well, the Ausländerbehörde process is a whole different clusterfuck altogether.

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Der Deutscher 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @derdeutscher.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

That’s the deal you signed up for! 😇 I had a lot of this when neighbor kids who were carpooling to school with us forgot their instruments or whatever in my car. Guess who drove back to school to deliver the left-behind items? That’s the rule of carpooling with (other people’s) kids!

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