Author Archives: Hermann Observer

German Of The Day: Denkverbot

January 6, 2015 By in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

That means a ban on thinking. And that’s what this latest anti-Pegida or anti-anti-Islamization hysteria is all about.

PEGIDA

This is so German it hurts. This anti-anti-Islamization movement isn’t primarily a protest against the Pegida anti-Islamization movement in my view (although of course it is that, too), it is going through that classic German ritual of protesting against the German Nazi past by trying to compensate for the anti-Nazi movement that never took place when it could have made a difference. It’s never “anti-” enough when and where it needs to be here in Germany, in other words.

Are these 18,000+ Pegida protesters in Dresden all Nazis and racists? Of course not, although some of them undoubtedly will be. So why call them that? Especially when a recent study indicates that over 18 percent of the German population is hostile to Islam in the first place (is that all?). Do the political parties and media on the left – and elsewhere – profit from calling them Nazis? You tell me.

If they are all such idiots then why the hysteria? Do they possibly have something to say then after all? I’m slowly starting to wonder now.

One thing really does worry me about all these Pegida people, however. It is one of their slogans I heard about the other day: “Potatoes instead of Döner Kebab!” Now that’s scary. Maybe these folks do need to be stopped after all…

Um als Gesellschaft eine sinnvollere Reaktion zu finden, braucht es etwas Gelassenheit.

Pegida? Kögida? Bärgida?

January 5, 2015 By in Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

This is all starting to bug me a litta…

Pegida

Germany is preparing itself for the first wave of PEGIDA demonstrations of the new year. The anti-Islamization movement has been steadily growing in popularity as the demonstrations reach their fourth month.

On Monday, the first marches of 2015 will also see the first turnout of protesters in the country’s capital, Berlin. Playing on the city’s bear mascot, “Bärgida” currently has just short of 600 people listed as attending on the Facebook event page. More are expected to march on Monday evening, however.

Tanks For Nothing, Vlad

January 4, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, History, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The end of the Cold War didn’t necessarily mean the end of war between big countries, and Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine undermines the notion that a quiet Europe is forever free from war. And modern warfare means tanks. Germany recently bolstered their current arsenal of tanks by buying and upgrading 20 Leopard 2A7 tanks acquired from the Netherlands, though originally from Canada.

Tanks

Upgrading old tanks is fairly routine and accounts for the dangers of the present. Developing a new advanced tank, instead, is a bet on the future. In August, German company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), makers of the current versions of the Leopard tank, merged with French defense company Nexter. Speaking to the merger, KMW CEO mentioned the idea of a Leopard 3 tank, noting that France has a strategic perspective that stretches decades into the future. In October, when the budget committee of Germany’s parliament put together their draft of a 2015 spending bill, the proposal to develop a new tank was quietly noted, and then debated in an independent German armed forces journal.

3000 Bombs In Berlin

January 2, 2015 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, History Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Oddity 12. Germany is the only place on earth where huge underground bombs are regularly unearthed all around the country and this barely even makes second page news. In fact most Germans directly affected by these excavations are more annoyed by them than anything else. They grudgingly leave their homes for a few hours until the bomb crews disarm or detonate the damned things.

Bombs

Berlin authorities believe 3000 bombs still lurk beneath the capital and experts warn that some are growing increasingly dangerous as they rust and their fuses grow more brittle.

54 Tonnen Bomben, Granaten und Munition aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg sind im vergangenen Jahr in Berlin gefunden und entschärft worden. Seit Ende des Krieges vor 70 Jahren wurden nach Polizeiangaben mehr als 1,8 Millionen Sprengkörper vernichtet. Nach Schätzungen der zuständigen Stellen beim Senat liegen aber weiterhin 3000 Blindgänger aus dem Weltkrieg im Boden der Hauptstadt – auch in der Nähe wichtiger Verkehrsknotenpunkten wie Bahnhöfen oder dem Flughafen Tegel. Genau kann das aber niemand sagen.

Germans Worried About Being Liked

January 1, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humor, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Or at least they’re suspicious about it. And rightly so, I say. I mean, wouldn’t you be worried if you were a German and people claimed that they liked you? As a country, I mean? It just doesn’t make any sense. It must be an international conspiracy of some kind and the very idea of being liked as a country that is Germany needs to be rejected out of hand before being thoroughly analyzed by German German popularity experts and then officially rejected out of hand for good, officially like.

German Popularity

Amazingly, people outside of this country like Germany. According to the English, Germany is the most popular country, even! Yes, the English! The very ones who used to hate us are now celebrating us. Only question is … why?

German Soldiers Build Schools

December 30, 2014 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

And roads. And they train the police and only do the things that other bad soldiers won’t do because they reek of goodness and niceness.

Kill Lists

And of course they also select insurgents to be placed on “kill lists” when nobody else is looking (so the bad soldiers can kill them later). But still.

A so-called “Target Support Cell” was based at the German headquarters of Mazar-e-Sharif. The group’s mission was, according to the report, “to collect information for the nomination of individual targets.”

Smart Guns Too Smart?

December 29, 2014 By in Helplessness, Hi-tech, Higher Education Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Mr. Mauch and his team developed a weapon that works using radio-frequency identification – the same technology employed in anti-theft tags on clothes in department stores. To fire its gun, you use an accompanying watch. When that watch is activated with a code and sitting on your wrist – or anywhere less than 25 centimetres away from the gun – the gun will fire. Otherwise, it’s a “just a piece of composite,” says Mr. Mauch, and useless as a weapon…

Smart Guns

A former long-time colleague of Mr. Mauch’s in the United States, who asked not to be named, called him a “first-rate” weapons designer but said he didn’t appreciate the American context. “The thing that worries me and millions like me is that the anti-gunners in our [government] … ONLY want this technology so they can restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners,” the colleague wrote in an e-mail. “Would you want to bet your life on your smart phone or laptop? Me neither.”