One in seven Germans shuns the Internet completely.
Those are actual Germans up there shunning the actual Internet with an actual laptop, I think.
Totally unrelated PS: Profiteering: Crisis Has Saved Germany 40 Billion Euros
Monthly Archives: August 2013
We Don’t Trust That There NSA One Little Bit
But we’ll, uh, trust them this one time here, maybe.
Al Qaeda is plotting attacks on Europe’s high-speed rail network, German newspaper Bild reported on Monday, citing a leaked National Security Agency (NSA) report.
The NSA report is based on an intercepted conference call between top Al-Qaeda operatives, in which the terrorist attacks were reportedly a “central topic”.
Berlin has responded to the threat with discreet measures such as deploying plain-clothed police officers at key stations and on main routes, Bild reported.
Der Hinweis stamme vom US-Geheimdienst NSA.
German Of The Day: Bausünde
Bausünden are building sins. Or building blunders? Or architectural abberations? Whatever. Berlin knows how. It’s just what they do here.
Photographer Turit Fröbe has now published an illustrated book about some of the most awful abberations, which must have been pretty difficult to compile. I mean, there is just too much to chose from here.
I love them all, by the way. The more sinful the better.
“Gute Bausünden zu finden, ist viel schwerer, als man denkt.”
Meret O.
There Are No Jokes
Well, actually there are. But in this case I’m not so sure.
The satirical political party “Die Partei” gathered Thursday at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to debut its latest campaign demand: eradicating tourists from the German capital.
The protest is a play on a debate in recent years in Berlin on how mass tourism threatens to transform the Brandenburg Gate, an important historical site in the city, into a a cheap Disneyland-like attraction.
Ob Ost, ob West, nieder mit der Touri-Pest!
Strange German News Blackout Going On Right Now Sort Of
No one here seems particularly interested that a fifty-year-old man shot his wife and daughter in Essen yesterday. His daughter died. His wife might yet. Didn’t anybody ever bother to tell this creep that Germany has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world?
Nor is anyone all that concerned about the fact that the UPS cargo aircraft that crashed in Alabama yesterday was an Airbus A300 freighter (thanks, Murph). I’m not so sure that would be the case if the aircraft had been manufactured by Boeing.
There are just more imporant things out there to report about these days, I guess.
“It would be inappropriate for Airbus to enter into any form of speculation into the cause of the accident.”
PS: Catastrophic climate change 3,200 years ago? But where did they get all their CO2 from?
German Job Wonder So Wunderbar That Millions Of Germans Have Two
Or need to have two, I should say.
Nearly 3 million Germans or over 9 percent of those working full-time are now working part-time as well.
Nope, it’s not because Germans are particularly fleißig (hardworking). This German job wonder that everybody envies so much over here, like everything else in life, comes with a price. The income from many of these wunderjobs is simply no longer enough to get by on. Kein Auskommen mit dem Einkommen (can’t make out with what comes in), or something like that.
Ist es pure Not oder der Wunsch, sich mehr leisten zu können?
Speaking Of Predictability
Zum Sommer gehört auch Günter Grass (Günter Grass is also a part of sommer – predictable as he is, just like those other Sommerloch monsters mentioned below).
This time the grand old man of letters suddenly felt the urgent need to attack former SPD boss (and now over-the-hill ex-Left Party boss) Oskar Lafontaine as being a sleazy traitor to the grand old SPD’s grand old cause, whatever the grand old hell that was.
I can only assume that this little outburst must have something to do with the upcoming federal elections. The SPD has ruled out ever forming a coalition government with the Left Party (one of the very few things they have managed to do right), but this is mostly because the Left Party, like the SPD itself, is already extinct (nobody has broken the part about the SPD being extinct to the SPD yet, however). Grass, of course, is about as SPD and as extinct as you can get.
And it doesn’t really matter that Grass is actually right about Lafontaine here. All it points out to me is just how much he and Lafontaine have in common. Nobody out there takes them seriously anymore.
Günter Grass gehört zum Sommer wie das Reptil zum Badesee.
Right On Time
This is definitely one of my favorite rituals over here. Like the reliable old groundhog back home, at least one weird animal sighting is guaranteed to take place in Germany during the so-called Sommerloch season.
This year’s winner is a terrifying alligator snapping turtle that actually attacked a young swimmer in Bavaria somewhere. Or maybe he didn’t. But still.
Like I said, this happens over here every year. Here are just a few examples. Who says that “news” isn’t a product that you can just turn on and off at will? Depending upon the demand, I mean. Which obviously seems to be pretty low at the moment (it’s a Sommerloch, like I said).
And all of these scary monsters have one other thing in common, too: They never get caught. Some böse Zungen (malicious tongues) even suggest that these creatures don’t even really, you know, exist?
The turtle, nicknamed Lotti, is likely to be some 40cm (16 inches) long and weigh at least 14kg (30 pounds).
Gulf States
Beautiful German weapon sales of the week – past six months, I mean.
Because somebody has to admire them.
Observing Hermann 