Make Embargo Not War

And make a killing with illegal nuclear technology exports to Iran in the process.

Here’s German pacifism at its finest: Nuclear technology for Germany? Have you gone mad!? German nuclear technology exports for Iran? Let’s talk.

Recent arrests suggest that Germany remains a hub for sales of prohibited supplies to Iran that are being used in Iran’s nuclear program. Illegal exports are undermining Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has pursued an embargo policy in order to prevent a possible war in the Middle East.

“Germany will do everything that it can to ensure that trade with Iran will not simply seek out new routes.”

Germans Concerned That Obama Maybe Could Might Not Be Reelected Doch Nicht (After All) Perhaps

Germans everywhere are all aflutter these days at the prospect of their United States President maybe not being automatically reelected after all, like which ought to be selbstverständlich (understood) or something but isn’t irgendwie (somehow).

German political scientists have namely just discovered that the unemployment rate in the US of Obama is well over 8 percent (and has been during the entire Obama administration), poverty levels are way up (3.6 million more Americans live off state support than before he entered office), the rate of founding new companies is at a thirty year low, government spending and debt have risen to incredible levels and the economy will simply not kick into gear, with no recovery or White House plan to change any of this in sight (and with no George W. Bush in sight to blame anymore, either).

Otherwise though, Obama is still the perfect guy for the job. So alles wird gut (everything will fall into place), they HOPE (way cool slogan from somebody a few years back).

Gouverneur Martin O’Malley geriet in Verlegenheit. Ob es den Menschen besser gehe als vor vier Jahren, wollte ein Reporter von dem demokratischen Gouverneur Marylands wissen. “Nein”, hatte O’Malley geantwortet.

Grass Caught Smoking Grass Again

After basking in the glory of his warmly received and highly acclaimed anti-Israeli poem in April, Germany’s Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass just can’t seem to help himself and has published yet another poetic work criticizing Israeli policy.

In his latest magnum opus, he praises, among other things, “A Hero in Our Time,” Mordechai Vanunu, who served 18 years in prison for espionage after betraying his country’s nuclear secrets to the Sunday Times of London.

By absoulte sheer amazing coincidence, Grass just released this work in a new book of poems yesterday appropriately entitled “Eintagsfliegen” (One-Hit Wonders) and in no way intended or intends to bring any unwarranted attention to himself and/or said book which can now be purchased online or at a bookstore near you.

And please remember: This is not, never has been nor never will be  anti-Semitic abuse. Enlightened Germans (and all Germans are) don’t do that kind of stuff (anymore). This is freakin’ German Nobel Prize-winning author Gunter Grass we’re talking about here, people. For crying out loud.

In 2006, Grass admitted in an interview that he had joined the Waffen-SS as a teenager at the end of World War II, and was accused at the time of having hidden the truth for decades while at the same time pointing the finger at others for hiding their Nazi past.

Well I Thought It Was Real News, Too

German news is reporting that Iranian news is reporting that American news is reporting that a Gallup poll is reporting how rural white Americans prefer Ahmadinejad  to Obama.

Unfortunately (did I just write unfortunately?), this was just another satirical piece by The Onion. Dumb Iranians.

“I like him better,” said West Virginia resident Dale Swiderski, who, along with 77 percent of rural Caucasian voters, confirmed he would much rather go to a baseball game or have a beer with Ahmadinejad, a man who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and has had numerous political prisoners executed, than spend time with Obama. “He takes national defense seriously, and he’d never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does.”

European Subsidies Not Enough For Airbus

Now they need American ones, too.

Brussels on Thursday sought WTO approval for trade sanctions against Washington worth $12 billion a year.

“On the one side we have $90 billion (70 billion euros) of illegal financing of Airbus by the EU and on the other side we have $3.0-$4.0 billion for Boeing.”

Nothing New And Nothing Improved

That tired old SPD.

With three tired old SPD guys trying to decide which one of them will have to be the one tired old SPD guy who will have to be the contender in next year’s election against the ridiculously popular Angela Merkel.

So like one of them, former Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück, threw his hat into the ring yesterday, sort of.

His angle? Eat the banks. Split their investment and retail units and have them create their own rescue fund and make them be good and nice again like they used to be in the past (I guess) als die Welt noch in Ordnung war (when the world was still in order).

Been there, done that. Yawn already. Bring out the next stooge and let’s get him over with, too.

“Banks are service providers and not betting shops.”

The Amazing Disappearing Political Party

Who says that in-fighting and a complete absence of credibility, character, policy, tactics or strategy can’t get you anywhere? It got Germany’s Pirate Party to nowhere fast. So you better take one quick look at them while you still can.

They’re down to five percent in the polls at the moment, and sinking fast. But let’s move on now and just try to remember them for all the good things they accomplished while they were still here among the living (hell if I know, I thought you might have).

Die Piraten liegen einer neuen Umfrage zufolge nur noch bei fünf Prozent und müssen damit um den Einzug in den Bundestag bangen.

EADS-BAE SSA OK?

BAE Systems has warned it will walk away from its proposed €35bn tie-up with EADS if the deal waters down its special relationship with the Pentagon.

This SSA, specifies that BAE’s senior leadership in the US is made up of Americans, among other things, and has allowed the UK’s biggest defence company to work on many lucrative US national security projects.

“The [US] military would rather have a BAE than a combined BAE-EADS. BAE has been very successful in managing its US relationship. EADS is not in the same bucket, and a combined EADS-BAE is going to be treated a lot more like EADS than BAE.”

Oompah, Oompah, $12.30, Please

€9.50 ($12.30) for an Oktoberfest beer? And that in September?

Damn that must be good brew.

Before long, even the most hard-bitten cynics can’t help but climb up on a bench (dancing on tables is frowned upon) and belt out the lyrics of newly learned folk song.