Tag Archives: Paranoia

Germany’s Crappy Eurovision Song Not Given The Votes It Deserved

May 19, 2013 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Denmark’s Loreen and 19 others sang crappy songs that took in way more votes.

Eurovision

Böse Zungen (malicious tongues) have even suggested that Germany’s crappy Eurovision showing last night might not be entirely the fault of its crappy Cascada entry.

“We are in a difficult situation,” Thomas Schreiber from the ARD TV über-network said. “This is clearly a political situation.”

It wasn’t like Angela Merkel was singing (she might have actually won), but “you also have to see that it wasn’t just Cascada up there, Germany was on stage, too.”

Der ARD-Unterhaltungschef deutet ein Imageproblem in Europa an: “Da stand auch Deutschland auf der Bühne.”

PS: It wasn’t all bad news for Germany this weekend, however. Justin Bieber’s monkey will now become a German citizen.

Empty Box Empty Box

April 21, 2013 By in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Hamburg police have determined that an empty box found in a subway station just before the Hamburg Marthon was scheduled to begin turned out in fact to be an empty box.

Videoüberwachung

However, if the box had not been empty, no one would have had any video footage of the person who had placed it there because, as you can see, surveillance cameras are still black (as in evil) in Germany.

In light of the Boston Marathon bombings, a new German “debate” about increasing the number of surveillance cameras has begun once again but will lead to nowhere fast as usual.

Kurze Aufregung im Umfeld des Hamburg-Marathon: Die Polizei hat am Sonntag einen verdächtigen Gegenstand in einem U-Bahnhof in der Innenstadt untersucht.

Guy Paid To Warn Germans About Too Much Video Surveillance Warns Germans About Too Much Video Surveillance

April 17, 2013 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This guy and millions of other Germans, too (although they don’t get paid and therefore do it for free).

Video

Datenschutzbeauftragten (data protection officers) are just that way over here, whether they’re Datenschutzbeauftragten or not.

It doesn’t matter that most of this video surveillance might be taking place for a reasonable reason (like crime prevention/fighting – think Boston Marathon), there is clearly a pathological fear of being watched in play over here (and not just over here, either). It’s a sign of the times, I guess. I know. It’s only paranoia (but I like it).

Oh. This suddenly reminded me of some old lyrics (sort of) to Frank Zappa’s Didja Get Any Onya?

…Years ago in Germany when I was a very small boy, zere was a lot of people standing around on ze corners asking questions: “Why are you standing on ze corner, acting ze way you act, looking like you look? WHY DO YOU LOOK THAT WAY?” And they ask me and I only would say: “I don’t . . . I don’t know, I’m just standing ’round ze corner waiting here . . . just in . . . in ze evening, and . . . and it’s so nice outside . . . the night is so nice . . . why . . . are you just asking these questions . . . “

“Offenbar scheint eine notorische Neigung zu bestehen, Nachbarn zu überwachen. Und eine pathologische Befürchtung, überwacht zu werden.”

Germans Concerned That Facebook Makes Them Even More Predictable Than They Already Are

March 12, 2013 By in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

A recent study entitled “Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior” has some 80 millian German privacy advocates terribly concerned that Facebook might even be more revealing than they already feared it was.

Facebook

The study has uncovered, for instance, that the vast number of users with female first names are in fact women. What is more, users who post pictures of themselves on Facebook run the very real risk of revealing to everyone their racial background. And perhaps creepiest of all was the discovery that the so-called “Facebook likes” a user “likes” with his or her Facebook like button reveal to the entire world just what it is said user “likes.”

This brings with it many sinister implications, of course. Unscrupulous data miners could deduce, for instance, that men who regularly like posts and pictures about beer are very likely to like beer themselves. Women, say, who actively like all things Barack Obama (especially after the first four years) are most definitely Democrats. And the list just goes on and on and on.

It is unclear at the moment what the privacy advocates will be able to do to curtail this flagrant invasion of privacy but at least most have agreed not to like it.

Mein Geschlecht, meine Hautfarbe, meine Drogen.

German Security Officials Now Ready To Consider Introducing More McDonald’s Restaurants

December 17, 2012 By in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

After the German city of Bonn narrowly escaped a deadly bombing last week – and unable to locate the suspected radical Islamist perpetrators due to a lack of recorded surveillance images – German authorities are now ready to consider intensifying the use of CCTV surveillance in Germany by dramatically increasing the number of McDonald’s restaurants allowed to open for business here.

Achtung, baby!

“Violent criminals could be deterred and crimes and planned attacks more quickly cleared up with increased McDonald’s video technology in public spaces,” one Interior Ministry spokesman said. “I mean, like we’ve got to do something now, don’t we?”

The only surveillance images that could help the police in the hunt for the Bonn perpetrators come from the McDonald’s fast food chain. Unlike Deutsche Bahn, the McDonald’s restaurant on Platform 1 did record activity with its surveillance cameras.

Ronald McDonald Sees All

December 13, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

You can run, suspected terrorist types, but you can’t hide from the Golden Arches.

Ronald sees all.

After discovering and destroying a “highly dangerous” explosive device at Bonn’s central train station, German police are now patting themselves on the back for having already made their first arrest in the case, all thanks to the dreaded (in Germany) security camera footage in use there.

No, not the footage from the security cameras aimed at the platform where the device was found – there was no coverage there – this footage came from the security cameras used at the central station’s US-Amerikan McDonald’s restaurant.

You know, die totale Überwachung (the total surveillance) state and all that? Germans don’t like that kind of stuff for some reason (that terrorist suspect dude doesn’t like it much either, I bet). It has to do with data privacy or Google Street View or something. I forget.

Would you like fries with that?

Zwar appellieren Datenschützer, bei der Überwachung öffentlichen Raumes die Verhältnismäßigkeit zu wahren. Doch etwa in Ballungszentren Großbritanniens hat man sich an flächendeckende Kamerapräsenz längst gewöhnt – und davon kann die Polizei häufig profitieren.

Is Possession Really Nine-Tenths Of The Law?

October 24, 2012 By in Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Strange. Stored abroad since the Cold War in case of a Soviet invasion, nearly half of Germany’s gold reserves are stored in the United States.

Stranger still: The Bundesbank or other independent auditors have never actually physically checked the gold’s authenticity or weight but have relied on “written confirmations by the storage sites” instead.

Now folks are starting to, you know, wonder (paranoia runs deep)? Hey, central banking at its best is all I can say. It’s not that we don’t trust you, it’s just that we don’t trust you.

“Ein Teil der Diskussion in Deutschland ist schon einigermaßen grotesk.”

Internet Making Germans Dumber

September 21, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

It’s called “Digitale Demenz” (Digital Dementia) or something.

“Avoid digital media,” one smart German is warning his countrymen. “As shown here many times over, they truly do make us fat, dumb, aggressive, lonely, sick and unhappy.”

Nice try, buddy. But what you’ve failed to consider here (being a German yourelf), is that Germans don’t need any help from anybody or anything at any time when it comes to being aggressive, lonely, sick and unhappy. They’re naturals at it. As for the Internet making them fat and dumb, well, OK. If you say so.

The strange thing though is that everywhere else on Planet Earth it appears as if the Internet is actually making us smarter. Whatever. I guess maybe that’s how it is with Deutsche Sonderwege (German separate paths), it’s the exception that always proves the rule.

Such findings refute the claims of those who warn that humanity is getting dumber. We’re “amusing ourselves to death,” American media theorist and critic Neil Postman argued in a 1985 book of the same name. Postman blamed television for a decline in cognitive skills. Since then, however, the average IQ in the US has risen by nearly 10 points.

Next Imaginary Crocodile Siting Underway

July 9, 2012 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Germans are totally tierlieb (fond of animals). Especially when they are the exotic and preferably dangerous kind of Tier they regularly think they see but never manage to find lurking about in the German Wildnis (wilderness).

This time it’s another crocodile, somewhere near Regensburg (with an emphasis on the crock here, folks). A guy out on a walk and “a lady on an air mattress” both saw the horrible creature so we can be sure that this time the danger is clear and present.

These are obligatory annual sightings, by the way. I don’t know why that it, but you have to have at least one here every summer. It has to do with the infamous German Sommerloch (which is just about to start), I think, but that’s another story.

Die Polizei in Bayern hat mit Schlauchbooten, Tauchern und sogar einem Hubschrauber nach einem Krokodil in einem Badesee gesucht – bisher erfolglos.

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