This past Saturday I was contacted on FB Messenger by a friend in England who said she had locked herself out of her Facebook account and needed help recovering it. Could I receive an authorization code for her and forward it? Trying to be helpful I said, Sure, but tell me how we met so I know this is really you and not some hacker. Her answer was correct, so I received and forwarded the code.

HOWEVER, this wasn’t really my friend but the hacker who had hijacked her account and who had obviously done his homework so he could answer my question, and the authorization code was not for my friend’s account but for mine. The hacker immediately changed the password and removed my e-mail and phone number from the account, so I had no quick way to regain control — Facebook’s recovery tools all presuppose that you still have a way to receive a one-time code by e-mail or SMS or WhatsApp to an address or phone number linked to your account, and that was unfortunately all gone.

Now, I will admit that in a way, this was my own fault. I am supposed to be sufficiently computer and internet savvy to not all for such scams. All I can claim as extenuating circumstances is the fact that I am getting older and probably more senile, that it was late at night, and that my “friend” correctly answered my question about how we became acquainted. But other than the hacker I can only blame myself.

But I DO blame Facebook for their abysmally inadequate and ineffective support. Not only is it impossible to actually talk to a support person; when one reports such an incident nothing at all seems to happen. I reported this through their help center as well as per e-mail to security@facebookmail.com, and several of my friends also reported the account as compromised. Four days later the account is still active and being used by the hacker to try and scam my friends in the same way I was scammed, and Facebook has done absolutely nothing.

I set up a new account and created a post explaining what had happened and immediately began to receive recommendations for people and services who could recover my account. I picked one whose online presence seemed pretty professional and paid a moderate amount to have my account recovered. Well, next he needed a special piece of software costing twice what I had already paid, and then, when he claimed he had gained control of the account, he demanded a further, even higher payment before he would provide me with the necessary information to access and secure the account. This not only exceeded my budget, I also suspected that he would string me along with one payment demand after the other. So I pulled the plug, decided to write off the money I had paid  and abandon the account. As far as I am concerned the ball is now in Facebook’s court to protect their users from a scammer they have been told about.

Nevertheless I asked a friend who can still see the old account to make screen dumps of the list of “friends” and I will see how I can warn as many as possible that my old account “Wolf N. Paul” is compromised.

My new Facebook-Account is “Wolf Paul” (without the “N.”), and I am slowly rebuilding my friends list. I thought about abandoning FB altogether, but it has been so helpful in reconnecting with people I had lost touch with and I don’t want to miss that.

What did I learn from this?

• To be extremely wary of requests to help people with authentication problems; if an authentication code is sent to you, chances are very good that it is for your account rather than for someone else’s.
• To expect no support from Meta or it’s subsidiaries; while they are obviously making money from us in the form of an ever increasing flood of advertising, they are not charging us directly for the service and thus have no obligation toward us.
• To never agree to designate a payment with PayPal “for Family and Friends” rather than “for Goods or Services” — for the latter one can open a dispute and get the money back if the promised service is not delivered, but the former is irretrievably lost.
• To never store material important to you (photos, videos, texts, chats) in an online service like Facebook, WhatsApp, or any of Google’s or Microsoft’s services without having one or more backups offline or in another service.

And now we get on with life — on and offline.

Nicola Sturgeon, forrmer First Minister of Scotland, in a recent interview:

Ms Sturgeon also doubled down on her view that transgender women are women, and said in the on-stage interview with trans novelist and activist Juno Dawson that “people should be able to live how they want to be”.

She warned that “it seems like everyone in society is raining down on trans people” and despite forming 0.5 per cent of the population, they were used as “a battering ram” and that gay people and other marginalised groups were becoming “collateral damage”.

In my view trans people “living how they want” is not really the issue.

• The issue is ignoring the instincts and wishes of most of the 99.5% of the people by criminalizing and ostracizing the view that binary sex is immutable and gender is merely a social construct.
• The issue is threatening people with fines, jail, or “cancelling” for seeing an important distinction between biological women and trans women, and daring to say so.
• The issue is denying physical women the safety of biologically female-only spaces.
• The issue is expecting biologically female athletes to compete against trans athletes with the physique of a man.
• The issue is whether we should allow children and adolescents who are still under their parents’ care and who need parental permission or agreement for most important decisions, to make this one life-altering decision without parental consent. Even with parental consent, irreversible treatments at such a young age are problematic.
• The issue (not only in the trans debate but in many of these hot topics) is the notion that people have the right to everyone else’s approval and affirmation and the right not to have their feelings hurt, and that people who withhold that approval and affirmation or hurt someone’s feelings should be criminally prosecuted. This makes a mockery of freedom of speech and freedom of opinion. 

And “gay people” (specifically lesbians) and also other biological women, are becoming collateral damage when forced, against their preference, to share toilets, showers, changing rooms, etc ., with biological males who have self-declared as female, and are being slandered as TERFs when they object.

Johannes Hartl from the Augsburg Prayer House writes on the occasion of this year’s Mother’s Day:[1]

Sorry if this spoils your mood, but Mother’s Day can also evoke very painful memories for some. Those who read my posts know that I hold the value of healthy parenthood extremely high. But today is about the opposite. I’m curious about your thoughts. And as always: Yes, of course, both men and women, fathers and mothers manipulate, and there is no rule without exception, and nothing and no one should be generalized. Nevertheless, the phenomenon I described exists. Or what do you think?

Source: Facebook post by Johannes Hartl; Translation Wolf Paul[2]

I am infinitely grateful to God that I had a mother, Irmtraut Paul, who was good to me (in fact, to all six of us children) because she also had a good mother and grew up in a loving family (with ten children — just like us, with six children, stereotypically Catholic 🙂 ). She passed away 13 years ago and is safe with God. In her final year she suffered from increasing dementia; this was one of the most difficult times for me and my siblings. I still miss her from time to time.

And because we don’t celebrate Father’s Day in our family[3] here is a tribute to my father, Walter Paul, who passed away 31 years ago: he was a good, though not perfect, father, an avid mountain climber even after he lost both legs below the knees, and I still miss him even after all these years.

1. I was going to post this on Sunday, but—understandably—obtaining permission took some time.[↩]
2. With the aid of ChatGPT[↩]
3. My father always thought Father’s Day was just a marketing gimmick, an opportunity to sell “manly” gifts, and I adopted his view[↩]

Johannes Hartl vom Gebetshaus Augsburg schreibt aus Anlaß des diesjährigen Muttertags:[1]

Sorry, wenn ich Euch die Stimmung verderbe, aber der #Muttertag kann für manche auch sehr schmerzhafte Erinnerungen wecken. Wer meine Beiträge liest, weiß, dass ich den Wert gesunder Elternschaft extrem hochhalten will. Doch heute geht es um das Gegenteil. Bin auf Eure Gedanken gespannt. Und wie immer: Ja natürlich manipulieren Männer und Frauen, Väter und Mütter beide und gibt es keine Regel ohne Ausnahme und soll nichts und niemand pauschalisiert werden. Dennoch gibt es das von mir beschriebene Phänomen. Oder was denkt Ihr?

Quelle: Facebook Beitrag von Johannes Hartl

Ich bin Gott unendlich dankbar dafür, daß ich eine Mutter hatte, Irmtraut Paul, die gut zu mir — zu allen von uns sechs Kindern — war, weil auch sie eine gute Mutter hatte und in einer liebevollen Famlie (mit zehn Kindern — wie auch wir mit sechs Kindern sterotypisch katholisch 🙂 ) aufgewachsen ist. Sie ist seit 13 Jahren verstorben und bei Gott geborgen, aber ich vermisse sie immer noch hin und wieder.

Und weil wir in unserer Familie Vatertag nicht feiern,[2] hier noch ein Tribut an meinen Vater, Walter Paul, der vor 31 Jahren verstorben ist: er war ein guter, wenn auch nicht vollkommener Vater, und auch ihn vermisse ich auch nach all den Jahren immer wieder.

1. Ich wollte das eigentlich bereits am Sonntag veröffentlichen, aber das Einholen der Genehmigung hat verständlicherweise etwas Zeit in Anspruch genommen.[↩]
2. Mein Vater hat den Vatertag immer nur für einen Werbegag gehalten, eine Gelegenheit, “männliche” Geschenke zu verkaufen, und ich habe diese Einschätzung übernommen[↩]

In a recent prayer of lament over the state of the church and society posted on social media one aspect being lamented was “You do not go out with our armies”.

But where does the expectation come from that God SHOULD go out with our armies?

God went out with Israel’s armies of old because they are His people and they were fighting in direct obedience to His instructions and with His promise of victory.

Our armies, as a rule, have NO direct mandate from God, our wars are not commanded by Him, our nations are not His people the way Israel is, and our governments do not even acknowledge Him, so why should He go out with them?

Throughout church history whenever the church has invoked God on behalf of the nations’ military campaigns — frequently, in fact, both sides in a conflict invoked God’s help — the results were not to the glory of God.

The obsession of many international politicians with a two-state solution in the Middle East is largely motivated by cynical, domestic political damage control. As a solution, the two-state solution is dead on arrival.

I am very pessimistic about the attitude of most politicians towards military conflicts and political or other crises abroad:

They make proposals for solutions that will not work but are meant to show their voters that they (the politicians) are not just sittin on their behinds and perhaps also bring a short-term relaxation so that the terrible images disappear from their voters’ TV screens, and which ideally do not produce any domestic political problems. Whether these “solutions” are viable in the long term or even worsen the situation in the longer view is not so important, because “by then I will have long been out of office, and others may worry about it.”

We see this in the attitude of many politicians and governments towards the current conflict in Gaza and their proposed solutions:

Apart from the absolutely necessary short-term measures to avert a hunger disaster (and the delay of which is primarily blamed on Israel, although the well-known facts suggest otherwise[1]), nearly all major international actors (USA, EU, UN, etc.) are pushing the so-called “two-state solution”, which would give the Palestinians their own state (in Gaza and the “West Bank”). This approach has only one serious disadvantage that will torpedo its implementation from the outset:

The “two-state solution” is rejected by the majority of both the Israeli and Palestinian populations (with over 70% each) — this according to current surveys by Israeli and Palestinian pollsters.

Palestinian leaders repeat—almost  like a mantra—the supposed command of the Prophet to annihilate the Jews and their own claim to the land “from the river to the sea” — but only on Arabic media channels, to the West they convey a different image. According to a current survey – by Palestinian pollsters – 73% of the population of Gaza approve of the massacre on October 7th, despite the immense suffering it has brought over them[2].

The Israeli population was predominantly in favor of a two-state solution in the 1990s; the continued Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist, as well as about 30 years of continuous shelling of Israeli villages and cities and countless other terrorist attacks, with the climax on October 7th, have turned this approval into rejection: The trust of Israelis of all political stripes that there could be a relatively peaceful coexistence or even just cohabitation with a Palestinian state is virtually at zero. A survey from February showed that 44% of Israelis believe that terrorism would increase if a Palestinian state were realized; in a survey at the beginning of this month, 79% of Jewish Israelis and 39% of Arab Israelis agreed with the statement, “There is no chance for a peace agreement with the Palestinians in the foreseeable future.” After October 7th, a two-state solution is seen as a reward for terrorism.

The obsession of many international politicians with a two-state solution clearly contradicts the will of the Israeli public and certainly does not match what the Palestinians want. It is primarily motivated by a cynical desire for domestic political damage limitation[3].

Sources for this article: “Who Wants a Two-State Solution? Not Israelis or Palestinians” by Israel Kasnett in “Israel Today“, March 22, 2024, as well as my extensive reading and media following on the topic.

1. Israel’s position is clear and justified: a ceasefire and thus easier provisioning in exchange for the release of the hostages from October 7th; so far, Hamas has demanded a permanent end to hostilities; there seems to be some movement on this issue now. Moreover, blaming Israel seems to be generally de rigueur: Although it is an open secret that Hamas embeds its terror infrastructure within civilian facilities and residential areas, and partly prevents the civilian population from seeking safety in order to propagandistically exploit the inevitable civilian casualties, and that Hamas seizes a significant portion of the international aid payments and deliveries to arm themselves and supply their fighters, and although the civilian casualty numbers, as published daily by the Health Ministry in Gaza, are statistically impossible and therefore unlikely (after all, the Health Ministry, like all official Gaza, is in the hands of Hamas), everything that comes from there is taken at face value by most international media and politicians, and Israel is blamed for the suffering of the civilian population[↩]
2. From the Palestinian perspective, what was done on October 7th was simply obeying what they believe to be the Prophet’s instruction (namely, killing Jews), so they naturally see the Israeli counterstrike as completely unjustified.[↩]
3. Currently in the USA, it’s about limiting the loss of votes in the presidential election in November ’24.[↩]

Die Obsession vieler internationaler Politiker mit einer Zweistaatenlösung in Nahost ist größtenteils von zynischer, innenpolitischer Schadensbegrenzung motiviert. Als Lösung ist die Zweistaatenlösung eine Totgeburt.

Ich bin sehr pessimistisch, was die Einstellung der meisten Politiker zu militärischen Konflikten und politischen oder anderen Krisen im jeweiligen Ausland anlangt:

Sie machen Lösungsvorschläge, die zwar keine langfristige Lösung bringen, die aber zeigen sollen, daß sie (die Politiker) nicht untätig sind und die vielleicht eine kurzfristige Entspannung bringen, damit die schrecklichen Bilder von den Fernsehschirmen der Wähler verschwinden und möglichst keine innenpolitischen Probleme produzieren. Ob diese “Lösungen” langfristig taugen, oder ob sie die Situation auf längere Sicht sogar noch verschlimmern, ist nicht so wichtig, denn bis dahin bin ich schon lang nicht mehr im Amt und es mögen andere sich den Kopf darüber zerbrechen.

Wir sehen dies an der Einstellung vieler Politiker und Regierungen zum aktuellen Konflikt in Gaza und ihren Lösungsvorschlägen:

Abgesehen von den absolut notwendigen kurzfristigen Maßnahmen zur Abwendung einer Hungerkatastrophe (und deren Verzögerung primär Israel in die Schuhe geschoben wird, obwohl die – durchaus bekannten – Fakten etwas anderes belegen[1], pushen fast alle wichtigen internationalen Akteure (USA, EU, UN, etc) die sogenannte „Zweistaatenlösung“, die den Palästinensern ihren eigenen Staat (in Gaza und im „Westjordanland“) geben würde.  Das Ganze hat nur einen gravierenden Nachteil, der die Umsetzung von vornherein torpedieren wird:

Die „Zweistaatenlösung“ wird sowohl von der israelischen als auch von der palästinensischen Bevölkerung mehrheitlich (mit jeweils über 70%) abgelehnt — dies laut aktuellen Umfragen jeweils von israelischen und palästinensischen Meinungsforschern.

Palästinensische Führer wiederholen fast gebetsmühlenartig den angeblichen Auftrag des Propheten, die Juden zu vernichten sowie ihren Anspruch auf das Land „vom Strom zum Meer“ – allerdings nur in arabischen Sendern, dem Westen vermittelt man ein anderes Bild. Laut einer aktuellen Umfrage – von palästinensischen Meinungsforschern – finden 73% der Bevölkerung von Gaza das Massaker vom 7. Oktober gut und richtig – trotz des immensen Leides, das es über sie gebracht hat[2].

Die israelische Bevölkerung war in den 1990er Jahren mehrheitlich für eine Zweistaatenlösung; die palästinensische Weigerung, Israels Existenzrecht anzuerkennen, sowie rund 30 Jahre Dauerbeschuß israelischer Dörfer und Städte sowie unzähliger anderer Terroranschläge mit dem Höhepunkt am 7. Oktober hat diese Zustimmung in Ablehnung umgewandelt: Das Vertrauen der Israelis jeder politischen Couleur, daß es mit einem Palästinenserstaat ein einigermaßen friedliches Mit- oder auch nur Nebeneinander geben könnte, ist praktisch auf dem Nullpunkt. Eine Umfrage vom Februar ergab, dass 44 % der Israelis glauben, dass der Terrorismus zunehmen würde, sollte ein palästinensischer Staat verwirklicht werden; in einer Umfrage Anfang dieses Monats stimmten 79% der jüdischen Israelis und 39% der arabischen Israelis der Aussage zu, „Es gibt keine Chance auf ein Friedensabkommen mit den Palästinensern in absehbarer Zukunft.“ Nach dem 7. Oktober wird eine Zweistaatenlösung als Belohnung für den Terrorismus gesehen.

Die Obsession vieler internationaler Politiker mit einer Zweistaatenlösung widerspricht eindeutig dem Willen der israelischen Öffentlichkeit und entspricht ganz sicher auch nicht dem, was die Palästinenser wollen. Es ist primär motiviert von einem zynischen Wunsch nach innenpolitischer Schadensbegrenzung[3].

• Quellen für diesen Beitrag: „Wer will eine Zweistaatenlösung? Weder Israelis noch Palästinenser“ von Israel Kasnett in „Israel Heute“, 22. März 2024, sowie meine breite Lektüre und Medienverfolgung zum Thema.

1. Israel’s Position ist eindeutig und gerechtfertigt: Waffenstillstand und damit einfachere Versorgung im Gegenzug für die Freilassung der Geiseln vom 7. Oktober; die Hamas hat bisher ein permanentes Ende der Kampfhandlungen verlangt; da scheint sich inzwischen etwas zu bewegen.  Die Schuldzuweisungen an Israel scheinen außerdem generell de rigeur: Obwohl es ein offenes Geheimnis ist, daß die Hamas ihre Terrorinfrastruktur in Zivileinrichtungen und Wohngebieten “einbettet”, und die Zivilbevölkerung teilweise daran hindert, sich in Sicherheit zu bringen, um die dadurch unvermeidbaren zivilen Opfer propagandistisch zu nutzen, und daß sich die Hamas einen Gutteil der internationalen Hilfszahlungen und -lieferungen unter den Nagel reißt, um damit aufzurüsten und ihre Kämpfer zu versorgen, und obwohl die Zivilopferzahlen, so wie sie vom Gesundheitsministerium in Gaza täglich veröffentlicht werden, statistisch unmöglich und daher unwahrscheinlich sind (schließlich ist das Gesundheitsministerium, wie das ganze offizielle Gaza, in den Händen der Hamas), wird alles was von dort kommt von den meisten internationalen Medien und Politikern für bare Münze genommen und Israel die Schuld am Leiden der Zivilbevölkerung gegeben.[↩]
2. Nachdem aus palästinensischer Sicht am 7. Oktober letztlich nur das getan wurde, was ihnen der Prophet aufgetragen hat (nämlich Juden töten), sehen sie den israelischen Gegenschlag natürlich als völlig ungerechtfertigt.[↩]
3. Aktuell in den USA, geht es um die Begrenzung von Stimmenverlusten bei der Präsidentenwahl im November ’24.[↩]

This was an interesting conversation between Piers Morgan and Slavoj Žižek.

I would disagree with Slavoj Žižek on one major point:

I don’t think Vladimir Putin is a religious fundamentalist. He has a mixed motivation of Russian nationalism fuelled by imperialist delusions, and a limitless ambition and lust for power. He merely uses religious fundamentalists as tools, as useful idiots.

In that he resembles Donald Trump, who also has a mixed motivation, of American nationalism fuelled by American exceptionalism “MAGA” delusions, and a limitless ambition and lust for power, and he uses Evangelicals and Christian fundamentalists as tools and useful idiots.

The big difference is of course that Putin has invaded a neigbouring country and has had more than one political opponent locked up and assassinated. Trump hasn’t done that, but judging by some of his campaign rhetorik, the locking up at least no longer seems impossible.

Oh, and I agree with Mr Žižek that the political establishment on both sides of the aisle have made Trump possible because of their failure to listen to the real needs and concerns of the people they are supposed to represent, instead being preoccupied with their pet ideological projects.

Aus Anlaß des Kurz-Schuldspruchs:

Ich habe Sebastian Kurz fast von Anfang an kritisch gesehen, vor allem wegen seiner Flüchtlingspolitik, aber auch z.B. wegen seiner Coup-artigen Machtübernahme in der ÖVP und Umfärbung derselben. Trotzdem empfand ich die ganzen, letztlich auf die Ibiza-Affaire um HC Strache zurückgehenden, Untersuchungsausschüsse, sowie auch die daraus folgenden Anklagen vor Gericht, als nahe dran an einer heuchlerischen, politisch motivierten Hetzjagd, die das politische Klima in Österreich nachhaltig beschädigt hat und letztlich nur der FPÖ um Herbert Kickl (der gefährlicher ist, als sowohl Haider als auch Strache waren) nützt.

Warum sage ich das?

Weil, unbeschadet der Faktenlage, die Oppositionsparteien und ihre Politiker so tun, als wäre dieser ganze Sumpf von Freunderlwirtschaft und Einflußnahme ein reines ÖVP-Problem, welches man dem politischen Gegner noch lange unter die Nase reiben kann. In Wirklichkeit ist es in allen Parteien und allem Ländern gang und gäbe, daß diejenigen, die an der Macht sind, bei Postenbestellungen usw. ihre eigenen Leute bevorzugen und auch persönliche Vorteile aus ihrer Machtposition ziehen.

Es ist daher zwar gut und richtig, daß ungesetzliches Verhalten geeahndet wird; aber der pseudo-moralisch erhobene Zeigefinger, ob er nun rot, pink, grün, oder blau ist, ist fehl am Platz.

Es ist höchste Zeit, daß die ÖVP den türkisen, populistischen Kurs verläßt und wieder zu ihren schwarzen, christdemokratisch/christlich-sozialen Wurzeln zurückfindet, und daß die demokratischen Kräfte im Land wieder zu einander und zu einen Umgangston miteinander finden, der eine Zusammenarbeit zum Wohl unseres Landes ermöglicht.

Sonst heißt es demnächst tatsächlich: Kickl ante portas.