Now the alpha-wolf speaks

Basel - On Easter Monday was Premiere. The national team looked at the new cinema spot at which they had turned to the European Championship. It shows the team in mountaineering outfit, as the climb to the top masters.
Bernd Schneider from slipping and is maintained by Jens Lehmann before the crash. The message of the spots: "Before you lies a hard road. But together we can make it. "
The path to the European Championship title in the summer of countless mountain trials. The last test before the appointment of cadres is at tournament on Saturday - against EM-hosts Switzerland (20.45 clock, ZDF).
Captain and leader Michael Ballack (31) is with mixed feelings in the last test. He must think of the events before the World Cup. 2006, also in March, stood at the last World Cup test in Italy.
It ended with a 1:4-fiasco. "After that everything has been questioned. The expectation was in the basement. "This is essential to prevent it on Wednesday.
Therefore Ballack again urges his colleagues. According to the EM via EXPRESS warning in the last week now the alarm shortly before the game. "It is the last big test. This performance, although this result is perceived. Now it does not matter how confident we are qualified for the European Championship. We will be judged by this game. "
The captain is ringing the alarm bells. Apart from Ballack appeared in the last few weeks just in Gomez and Arne Friedrich in their clubs in European Championship form. The rest of the team is chipped or sag.
"We were able in recent months does not connect to the good performance of the qualification," has recognized Ballack. "To succeed, we need a fit and big team. This is currently not the case. I hope the time factor, and I'm hoping for a good game against Switzerland, so we are able to regain confidence. "
Also, team manager Oliver Bierhoff knows that fast from the Alpine adventure in the summer can be a nightmare company. "We have the goal of taking the title in the summer. But we need to build up the momentum again. "
Also of interest
Bierhoff Lehmann makes steam

Now it hits the middle class

Dusseldorf - So far, the economic crisis had hit mainly large corporations such as Thyssen Krupp, Opel and Daimler. But now the sales problems are also feeding into the middle class.
More and more small and medium-sized companies need to delete posts, we found the spring survey by the Economic Information Association Creditreform.
The survey results are as follows: Only a third of the companies rated their own business situation as good or very good (2008: 47%). In half of the companies falling revenues (2008: 26%) .38,2 percent see their future pessimistically (2008: 13%). This attempt, most enterprises (70%), employees keep their jobs and resolve the problems with short-time (30%) or working time (42%) to.
 For medium-sized small businesses (fewer than ten employees) and medium-sized enterprises (10 to 500 employees) are expected. They are in Germany, 99.7% of all sales taxable businesses. They represent 65.9% of all social insurance jobs.
Mario Ohoven, president of the Association of medium-sized businesses, does not see the situation as dramatic.
"Even in this survey, one should look very closely. Certainly the crisis in some sectors, such as the medium has taken a massive automotive suppliers. But in other areas, such as trade or service enterprises, it looks still pretty good.
This indeed shows the survey: Nearly three quarters of SMEs to keep their employees at least, and only 14 percent consider their business situation is bad. That surely means a contrario, the vast majority is satisfied, at least once. "
 There was "no reason to fall into a doomsday scenario." Ohoven for EXPRESS: "I am convinced that the stimulus package will help ensure that the German middle class gets off with a black eye.
It is now crucial that the federal government gives a signal in the direction of the economy Down: with the taxes, so that SMEs can re-invest. "

The father of all video games

Cologne - Two people, a TV, two bars, which flies between a tennis ball. Ping-pong. Ping-pong.
What few know: A 87 years old Rhinelander invented the classics. On Tuesday, Ralph Baer, father of video games, returned to Cologne.
A thin elderly man, physically and mentally fit, Honorary Chairman of the Jury for "Lara," the German Games Award, in the 21 medienforum.nrw is awarded.
"Computer games today - since I myself no longer look through," says the study / television. Empire? "I'm fine." But he himself has never earned directly to his idea.
Forefather of "Pong" for the Playstation. Thus, the development ran clicking here>
He brings - as a two-year moved to Cologne, with 16 refugees from the Nazis in the U.S., then two years as a GI stationed in Europe - with its mid-century invasion of the sixties an industry on the track, which now rakes in billions.
Ralph Baer builds a device to intercept Soviet radio conversations in Berlin, radars capable of detecting submarines.
"But I have also put together TV and wanted to necessarily develop a fun added. At a bus stop in New York City came to me then the idea for the remote table tennis game. "
The gifted tinkerers began - at first behind the back of his employer - zusammenzuschrauben box full of electronics, with which one can move through squares of knobs on a screen, to light guns to shoot them.
The result is 1969, the "Brown Box" for the boob tube-tennis. Baer's employer from the defense industry to patent the idea to sell the license to the TV device "Magnavox."
"This" Odyssey "has sold 350,000 copies." Kurz drauf Atari developed the arcade machines "Pong". 25 million copies sold.

Save the Bonn Market

Bonn --
Problem Child Bonner Weekly: motley stalls and carts.
Again and again, large gaps in the square outside the Old City Hall - and the economic crisis or the competition from the supermarkets and share many dealers so it must be quite dichtmachen.
Who can save our Bonner market as it is attractive? Now, the policy makes steam. Bonn's Mayor Helmut Kollig District (SPD): "On 17 November there is a meeting of all factions and groups. Topic include: Bonn's market. "
Kollig's prime "market guild" in sight: "What we were aiming for the market is not reached." The market offers a consistent picture, the stands are placed higgledy-piggledy.
Because it is always between traders and operators, who call the shots since April 2008, Crash, Kollig calls "more finesse" from the "market guild. Threat of the district mayor: "We can also undo everything." Does that mean in plain language: The market could run again under municipal direction.
SPD politician Herbert Spoelgen criticized the "bleak picture" of the market that the offer had not improved, that for weeks less than 20 stalls were open. The administration is on 1 December in Bonn Bezirksvertretung comment. "Market guild" attorney Frederick Holzhauer falls from the clouds when he heard of allegations. "We have now more classes than before." And one of two new florist, tea and spices, honey, the Caritas Suppenstand, the bread truck.
For the new hole at the obelisk promises Holzhauer: "She will probably be close in 14 days." Then there stood one Selbstvermarkter, offering an even more lack of inventory. And as for the "cabbage and beet-reproach:" Our hands are tied. Remain free, the sightline to the Town Hall must continue to Sternstraße we can not. "
EXPRESS Conclusion: market-people, politicians and managers need to contact urgently at a table. The market is the heart of the city - and weiterschlagen must prevail!

Star Bar raves for U.S. Army

Bonn - Who has not heard from the SAT1-court show "Judge Barbara Salesch"? Since the Bonn Uwe Krechel appears regularly as a sharp-tongued criminal lawyer.
In the Federal City, he represents real events and passing maintains a very special hobby. Lawyer Krechel, run free time in casual trousers Army through the city: "I am an absolute fan of the army. For decades, I collect old uniforms and old cars. Meanwhile, I have so much that I have set up next to my house a small museum. "
60 Old U.S. original uniforms hanging there, there's an old ambulance from 1944 to marvel at, a Ford GPW jeep was built in 1942 (the Jeep during the landing of the Allies in Normandy while) and a weapons carrier. Purchased "I have all these things in the U.S.," said Krechel. Now the TV lawyer for the fifth time in the "Classics of Bonn has taken" with his jeep. As a passenger, of course, both in original uniforms: Bonn Prinz officer and lawyer Christoph Arnold.
"It's fun, in such an old sweetheart to drive. This is indeed not a question of who first comes to the finish, "said Arnold. Was started at 10 clock in the Duisdorf pedestrian zone. "The first stage was 85 km long. Was a pause was inserted at noon in Bad Münstereifel and then went again after 84 km to target Schloss Miel, where the evening celebrating yet, "says Arnold. "In the past we've even won a trophy, we were third in our class," said Uwe Krechel. "A bit of a pity only that I no longer have time to attend such events."
Well, that should the two Bonn celebrity lawyers in their Arbeispensum and the spectacular cases, they represented surprised, not really ...