Ja, well. Good luck finding someone to talk to.

In Germany, if you are seriously sick or injured, you need support from someone who can make demands of the hospital and the doctors, otherwise you get no info and probably not enough treatment and medication. If Mutti doesn’t have anyone actively engaging with doctors and staff, Mutti is pretty much f’ed in proverbial a. Why? Because everyone is overworked and disillusioned and very tired, and there is never enough time or money to treat people properly because of the way our health system has been restructured: to be profit oriented - even public hospitals.

Still beats what they have in 'murica: at least you can get affordable treatment even as a nobody.

You better. If you do not arrive at the ER via ambulance, they will assume your case is not an emergency.

No, it is not over the top.

One thing I learned after using computers for 34 years: As soon as you throw away a cable, you will have sudden and very unexpected need for it. I cannot see how that could be true for VGA and old centronics printer cables, but I shall not risk to find out.

That would be my main argument as well - if it had been faked, the Soviets would have known and cried foul.

The shah’s reign of terror was ended by the people of Iran, not by islamists. The islamists just coopted the revolution. Nobody wants the shah back.