Cold War's unintended consequences

Some day I'll tell you how I used to cross the Cold War borders of various Eastern Bloc countries, including Soviet Russia, armed with ... a chocolate bar.

Meanwhile, enjoy this interesting, if sad tale of Cold War's unintended victims... the Red Deer:

Ahornia inhabits the thickly wooded mountains along what once was the fortified border between West Germany and Czechoslovakia. At the height of the Cold War, a high electric fence, barbed wire and machine-gun-carrying guards cut off Eastern Europe from the Western world. The barriers severed the herds of deer on the two sides as well.

The fence is long gone, and the no-man's land where it stood now is part of Europe's biggest nature preserve. The once-deadly border area is alive with songbirds nesting in crumbling watchtowers, foxes hiding in weedy fortifications and animals not seen here for years, such as elk and lynx.

But one species is boycotting the reunified animal kingdom: red deer. Herds of them roam both sides of the old NATO-Warsaw Pact border here but mysteriously turn around when they approach it. This although the deer alive today have no memory of the ominous fence.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Triumph of money over culture?

It is reported from the United States that the Americans have declared our patents void. That fits their mentality exactly. I have the impression anyway that the Americans participate in a European war every quarter century in order to be able to take for themselves as cheaply and easily as possible whatever cultural work has been done in Europe. The American continent is hardly in a position to bring forth anything of its own in the cultural realm. It is dependent upon imports from Europe, and as the Americans are so crazy about money they naturally like to take possession of the results of our creative and inventive labors as far as possible without paying for them.

Joseph Goebbels, Ph.D., in The Goebbels Diaries, April 23, 1942

How to buy a Passport

[...] state agencies’ officials who were engaged in selling Latvian passports, news agencies are reporting today. At present there are 19 employees of Department of Citizenship and Immigration of Latvia under suspicion, according to the press release of the Ministry of Interior of Latvia.[...] a valid passport of the country belonging to the Schengen zone, may cost in the black market from EUR 40,000 up to 100,000. SOURCE

100,000 Euros for a Latvian passport? Sounds a bit stiff to me, or prices went up well beyond the inflation rate. Supply and demand issue? Some 15 years ago on the bazaar in Poland (described in my first novel) you could purchase a Canadian passport for about 3,000 USD. I hear they go for 5,000 - 10,000 today. Of course... who would want a Canadian passport ;) but still - that's a bargain given the state of the dollar. Back then, the word on the street was that government and security officials were involved (or government's private contractors known as cobblers). In that respect nothing changed...

PS: Folks, I strongly caution you about entering into any transactions involving purchase of documents online. This post is only for informational purposes. Jack