German Of The Day: Die Befriedigung Voyeuristischer Bedürfnisse

That means the satisfaction of voyeuristic needs. And that is not, this guy here below repeats, NOT what his possible participation in the upcoming reality-show-media-spectacle “Mars One” on RTL is going to be about.

Mars One

Well not for him, perhaps. He says he just wants to make the world a better place. On Mars (he’s young – and has an SPD party membership book). And of the 200,000 people who have applied to take part in this cosmic kamikaze picnic he has made it all the way up to the last 660 future contestants batch. You know, he’s still being casted like they do on Germany’s Next Topmodel by Heidi Klum? His mom must be really proud.

You see, the planned “Mars One” mission will need lots and lots of dough to properly sponsor, I mean send their crews to their deaths and that’s why the TV rights have already been sold to the Dutch production firm Endemol, the same folks who bring us, I mean you, shows like Big Brother. So I guess we know where this is going – other than to Mars, I mean – but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the satisfaction of voyeuristic needs, to come full circle again already. No, it clearly doesn’t. It’s just about a simple suicide mission to Mars. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hey, I’m all for the exploration of Mars. But a one-way ticket there for human beings in reality show format is, well, as one guy in the article rightly points out, “ethically questionable” to say the least.

Es geht nicht um die Befriedigung voyeuristischer Bedürfnisse.

The Connection Has Timed Out

Here’s a German article I read earlier this afternoon entitled: 70 Years after the Dresden Bombing – “The myth began while the ruins were still burning.”

Timed out

Strange that it won’t open right now. Strange because, well, this German researcher who was interviewed in it says, in essence, that what most of us associate with the bombing of Dresden is actually nazi propaganda that was then also instrumentalized by the communists during the Cold War.

Yes, the killing of 25,000 people was a terrible thing. He then points out that 35,000 died in Hamburg (he forgot to mention the 40,000 in London), however. He also points out that the allied attack was an attack on a military target and not one of vengeance, as opposed to what we are all supposed to believe. The Dresden bombing is just another great myth that no one can properly approach here, in other words, nazi/communist propaganda that we are still hearing to this very day.

An interesting point of view but clearly one that some people out there don’t want us to hear, I mean read. Eerie, don’t you think? Try again later at: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/jahre-bombardierung-von-dresden-der-mythos-entstand-noch-in-den-rauchenden-truemmern-1.2347466

The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy.

Which Name’s Worse?

Denis Cusper, Deso Dogg or Abu Talha al-Alman?

Deso Dogg

Personally, I’d go with Denis Da Dogg. I mean, he is still trying to sell records, right?

The U.S. State Department has designated a German rapper an international terrorist due to his work as a “willing pitchman” for ISIS, including an appearance in a recruitment video holding a severed head, NBC News reports.

I got your Haftbefehl for you right here, pal.

Let The Campaign Begin

Berlin officials have reacted angrily to a series of fake, Nazi-style ads purporting to be part of the German capital’s campaign for the 2024 Olympics.

Olympics

The spoof ads appeared last week on a satirical blog called Metronaut. Several of the ads were based on actual posters from the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which Adolf Hitler used to showcase Nazi Germany to the world.

City officials issued demands via lawyers on Monday to remove their logo and names from the ads.

Metronaut’s co-founder, John F. Nebel, says the ads were meant to spark a discussion about the darkest chapter in Berlin’s history.

Germany And USA Divided Over How Best Not To Do Anything In Ukraine

Although President Obama just went out of his way to stress that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine only reinforces the unity of the US and Europe to not do anything about it, Chancellor Merkel’s visit to Washington today nevertheless made clear once again just how wide their views differ when it comes down to the how-not-to-do-anything-about-it part.

Ukraine

Washington, on the one hand, prefers talking about maybe sending weapons someday perhaps but let’s not rush into things because these are weapons we’re talking about here after all people while Merkel, for her part, categorically rejects the idea of sending weapons that are never going to be sent anyway, preferring instead more negotiations about negotiations with whoever feels like negotiating about anything at anytime anywhere, stressing here how crucial it was “that the West stand up for Ukraine,” provided, of course, that this remain a purely figurative expression devoid of anything that could even remotely be interpreted as meaning “like actually standing up for Ukraine or anything.”

“If we give up this principle of territorial integrity of countries, then we will not be able to maintain the peaceful order of Europe.”

Germany New Measles Superpower

And here you thought US-Amerika must be a world leader when it came to irresponsible immunization rates. Measles The United States has been shocked by a surge in measles cases with more than 100 incidents in January alone. This, however, is much less worrisome than a current outbreak in Germany. While authorities there had hoped to completely eliminate the disease this year, 254 new cases emerged in January, primarily in Berlin. If we consider that the German population is only one fourth of the United States’, the German measles surge was about 10 times worse than the one in the United States in January, relative to the total population. “The outbreak in Berlin is a sobering setback. In general, Germany’s immunization rate is too low.”

PS: Germans are also super-good at producing journalists who like to twist the facts, too. Their lies might not be quite as spectacular as other journalists‘ lies are, but still.

German Of The Day: Scherzkeks

A “joke cookie” here is what we call a wisecracker. You know, a jokester? Take this jokester here at Tegel Airport today (this guy really kills me).

Tegel

He’s getting ready to board his flight with his girlfriend for their vacation in Florida, right? So they’re having a look at his carry-on bag and he says – now get this – “There’s a bomb inside.” Funny. As. Scheiße! Don’t you think? And original, too. But the real punch line part only comes around a little later: He wasn’t allowed to take that flight, screws up his vacation, impresses his girlfriend big-time forever and then gets charged with another cool German word: Ordnungswidrigkeit (an administrative offense or infraction)! Hardy, har, har. Brilliant joke cookie stuff who needs the crackers?

Some people are just more funny than other people are, I’ve found. Evolution wants it that way or something.

Like this guy’s uncle here earlier in the week (I’m assuming of course it just has to be this guy’s uncle). He walked in through security control at Tegel with a revolver and 43 rounds of ammunition in his carry-on bag because – now get this – he didn’t know it was in there! Ha, ha. Apparently the bag had been given to him when his father died and he had never bothered to look inside before and just grabbed the thing at random when he needed a bag for his flight. Hilarious stuff.

But how on earth do they manage to think any of this up?

“Dieser sensible Sicherheitsbereich ist einfach kein Ort für schlechte Scherze.”

German-Americans So Well-Integrated They Make Other Americans Sick

I mean, like what’s the point of coming to this country if you don’t even try to bore everybody with stories about your ethnic roots all the time? That’s totally un-American misbehavior, if you ask me. But German-Americans are that way. They’re different. They’re kind of like German-Germans, if you know what I’m saying. They’re tricky.

Map

German-Americans are America’s largest single ethnic group (if you divide Hispanics into Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, etc). In 2013, according to the Census bureau, 46m Americans claimed German ancestry: more than the number who traced their roots to Ireland (33m) or England (25m). In whole swathes of the northern United States, German-Americans outnumber any other group (see map). Some 41% of the people in Wisconsin are of Teutonic stock.

Yet despite their numbers, they are barely visible. Everyone knows that Michael Dukakis is Greek-American, the Kennedy clan hail from Ireland and Mario Cuomo was an Italian-American. Fewer notice that John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky with presidential ambitions, are of German origin.

Please Come Back

We miss you. Or at least I do.

The FDP, the traditional king-maker in German politics, lost all of its seats in the national parliament in the 2013 election, leaving conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel little choice but to ally with the center-left Social Democrats. As part of their coalition pact, she also agreed to new laws, including a national minimum wage, that have angered business leaders…

An impromptu rant by Christian Lindner, the Free Democratic Party’s chairman, defending entrepreneurs and startup culture made it onto newspaper front pages here and became one of the most watched political speeches of recent months.

“If one succeeds, one ends up in the sights of the Social Democratic redistribution machinery and, if one fails, one can be sure of derision and mockery.”

Der FDP endlich Beine machen!