A chance event led me to visit the memorial site in the Bendlerblock. Situated near Tiergarten, the building is famous as the centre of resistance among the military of the Third Reich. The most famous of them was Colonel von Stauffenberg, who planted a bomb to a meeting Hitler was attending.

Director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects) is currently shooting a film about the conspiracy – with Tom Cruise starring as Stauffenberg. The city officials have denied Cruise's request to shoot in Bendlerblock and at some other locations. They are at odds with The Church of Scientology figureheaded by Cruise. Berliner Zeitung reported, that the cult leaders regard Germany as the most critical beach-head to Europe. The other front being the Beckhams?

I also ran into the Fuckparade (hence the video above). The beaty street party started in 1997 as an underground alternative to the Love Parade, but is also associated with political activism against state control.

In the wake of G8 summit earlier this summer, the anti-terror enforcement has now invoked Section 129a – a paragraph in the German Criminal Code law dating back to the days of RAF. The paragraph was used to arrest a non-conforming sociologist Andrej H. and three others suspected of "supporting" a left-wing extremist group Militante Gruppe (MG).

Let's see how this mess sorts out. It's been in the regional news, at least. In any case, if accusations are based on such conspirational behaviour like – 'not taking his mobile phone with him to a meeting' or 'having access to libraries which he can use inconspicuously in order to do the research necessary to the drafting of texts of the MG' – it's needless to say, that something profound is in danger here.

Quoting The Obvious? via the LIFT lab (emphasis mine):

When I learned, via twitter, of the car bomb that didn't go off in London last night my first thought was "oh well".

I first heard of 9/11 via katastro.fi mailing list. I remember someone commenting, that "CNN's surely getting lots of hits now". I was at the Uni then. There was no television in the faculty. We gathered into the lobby's kitchen around an old Macintosh with a shabby TV tuner. It only tuned in a Swedish news channel. This unlikely mediation of the disaster made it even more disturbing.

The most weirdly funny piece of news lately has been the story of euro banknotes that tear themselves apart into the thin air. Money comes out of the cash machine all right, but after a while, starts to decompose. Berlin police have been CSIing these problem banknotes and come to the conclusion that they were predisposed to sulphuric acid.

Whether this has been deliberate or result of a spilling battery inside certain cash dispensers, is not yet clear. The prospect of an artistically motivated intervention is captivating, at least to my imagination. So far around 1500 contaminated banknotes have been reported - typically of 50 euro denomination. Consumers need not worry, as long as more than 50% of the note remains, it can be exchanged in a bank.

If this is intentional, I have to commend the saboteurs for creative approach. Then again, one must keep in mind that 75000 euro is petty cash compared to what the members of former techno band KLF accomplished in 1994. After paying their taxes they packed their money into a suitcase and flew off to the Scottish whisky island of Jura. There they casually burned one million pounds sterling and filmed it on 16mm.

Related links:
Experten rätseln über Brösel-Euros
Brittle euro notes baffle Germans
The K Foundation burn a million quid
KLF - The Documentary

Update:
BBC Video: Mystery of crumbling banknotes

Update 23.11.2006:

Just got a comment from a friend, whose message had been stuck in instant messaging limbo for nine days. Independent has the news that decomposing originates from banknotes that were "used to portion out and snort designer drug known as crystal meth". 20 and 50 euro notes are said to be perfectly proportioned for this. In contact with sweat, methamphetamine becomes corrosive. Towards the end of the article, a German professor also shares his findings about drugs and banknotes across Euro currency zone.