Author Archives: Hermann Observer

Steinmeier not allowed to speak at the Washington Monument

February 5, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 1 Comment

In a feeble attempt to copy then not-quite-yet-President Obama’s speech at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, currently campaigning in the US to become the next Chancellor of Germany, will not be allowed to hold an election rally at the Washington Monument.

 

 Smile for the camera!

 

Of all people, his colleague US Secretary (she hates that word) of State Hillary Clinton had to break it to Steinmeier that his idea was like totally peinlich (embarassing) and completely brain-dead already.

 

Not only would such an election rally be highly inappropriate in a foreign country if it isn’t Obama speaking in Germany, the secretary said, but not a soul would give a damn or bother to show up, either. “I mean, it’s not like anybody over here even knows who or what the hell you are or anything, Frank,” Hillary added. “Nothing personal.”

 

His English not being the best, Steinmeier took this to mean yes and said, beaming “I am pleased that Germany is now one of Washington‘s preferred partners again.”

 

„Der Besuch des Bundesaußenministers habe einen Neuanfang der deutsch-amerikanischen Beziehungen markiert.“

Trauma, trauma, trauma!

February 4, 2009 By in Habitudes Leave a comment

I think Bruce said it best, even if it was “drama” back then. Or maybe drama is the more appropriate word here doch (after all).

  

Afghanistaned out

 

Oh Brother. Non-combat troops not taking part in any, uh, combat and the latest spin is that the Bundeswehr guys stationed in Afghanistan can’t handle the strain of it all anymore and are post-traumatized from all the, well, road building and school building and making friends and having to be  “the good guys” all the time. And that’s why they’re dropping from PTBS like flies these days. PTBS is a new German sickness that has to do with post-traumatic strain or something. I guess it’s just too much of a strain to hang around the post all day, and that can be very traumatic.

 

Take this guy here. I don’t wish a suicide bomb attack on anybody, honestly, and he got through this without any physical injury, miraculously, thankfully, and more power to you. But what then? In Germany that means early retirement time with 45. No wonder Berlin refuses to send any troops to actually fight anywhere. They’d go broke in three weeks.

 

And speaking of Berlin, the timing of this new PTBS craze strikes me a bit funny (ha, ha, they had a show about it on ZDF the other night and it’s in all the papers today). Foreign Minister Steinmeier is visiting Hillary C. herself in Washington as you read this. If a change to Germany’s Afghanistan policy ever gets brought up, the President has threatened to do so in the past, Steinmeier can always point to this new development, I guess. Germany’s at the breaking point now, you see.

 

„Deutsche Soldaten mit Kriegstraumatisierung. Ihre Zahl wächst rasant.“

We’re in a corner and we like it there

February 3, 2009 By in Heconomy Tags: 1 Comment

Constraints, what constraints? We love constraints! And what’s a monopoly, between friends? Germans love board games of all kinds, you know, and they’ll play monopoly with anybody, as long as he or she’s a Russian, I guess.

 

That gives me gas

 

So whatcha gonna do? Achieving full energy independence isn’t an option for Germany and, being that the Germans won’t go nuclear or burn more coal (neither options are allowed for some strange reason) they’re going to have to be happy with their gas dependency on Russia (it’s around 40% at the moment).

 

And that’s why Angela Merkel, like that guy before her, believes that it’s good that the planned Nord Stream gas pipeline will bypass “veto players” like Poland and supply Germany directly with gas. It’s better for Europe that way, or something. Schroeder’s “unprecedented mixing of political and private commercial interests” was an awful, dreadful and despicable thing, Angie will tell you, but we’ll take that Russian gas all the same, no strings, I mean constraints, attached.

 

“The Nord Stream pipeline project was initially agreed to in late 2005 by then-Russian President Putin and former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who signed the deal during his last days in office.”

No more crazies!

February 2, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 1 Comment

We just want to keep all you mainstream ignorant folks in the party. Left Party point man Gregor Gysi is mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore. The SED (German communist) replacement party in Neues Deutschland, the Left Party, is sick and tired of being hassled within their own ranks by ungrateful comrades mostly from that yet pretty-much-uncharted “western” part of the nation and is now ready to start throwing their sorry non-conformed Hinternteile (back parts) out.

 

Pow, you wackos! To the moon!

 

It seems that the Left Party is a big noise now, or at least they want to come over that way, and the times when you could turn a tolerant blind eye to the wackiest of left-wing ideas has now ended or is about to or might, maybe. They couldn’t come down and clean up on the usual loonies too hard too fast at first, you see, otherwise people might think that they were the SED (German communist) replacement party in Neues Deutschland. Which they are, of course, but actually aren’t, uh, if you get my drift.

 

It appears that certain unstable members from THE WEST have of late been calling for unusual things like asking constituents not to vote for their own party out of protest against something not, well, wacky enough. Which really isn’t all that unusual in Germany, if you stop and think about it. The SPD does it all the time, for instance (more power to ya, Wolfgang Clement). But, on the other hand, if you take a good look at the SPD these days, I can definitely see where Gysi is coming from. I mean, it’s not like he’s crazy or anything.

 

„Wer der Fraktion bewusst schaden will, der gehört nicht in die Partei.”

O-Ton

February 1, 2009 By in Hysteria Tags: Leave a comment

O-Ton used to mean Originalton (“original”, what someone said word-for-word) in German. Now it means Obamaton, I guess. Come on now, you always suspected it. The Germans only pretend like they can’t speak English.

 

O-ton from the O-office

 

Boy do they ever eat this stuff up over here (or their media does, I should say). I had a jaw-dropper watching an ARD report about Iraq last night, too. It’s everywhere. Morning has broken and the mourning is broken. Quite suddenly, let’s say for about two weeks now, Iraq, for instance, is no longer that civil war-torn quagmire place it has been all these long years. It’s a land of milk and honey kind of place. Everything’s gonne be OK now. And it’s all because of you-know-who. After all, that’s why he got nominated and elected, right?

 

What a difference a day makes. An inauguration day, I mean. Perception? Deception? Immaculate conception? Whatever.

 

“US-Präsident Obama gratulierte zu der friedlichen Wahl.“

Go German navy!

January 30, 2009 By in Hypocrisy Tags: 3 Comments

Well let’s chalk up another great success for the Deutsche Marine. Or at least that’s what one might want to do if he or she believes what they put out on the wire half an hour ago about their “Atalanta” anti-pirate mission going on down in the Gulf of Aden. And this despite that unfortunate little nasty detail about the hijacking of a German tanker by Somali pirates – yesterday.

 

 Another great success!

 

Carrying liquefied petroleum gas from Saudi Arabia, the German-owned, Bahamas flag-waving Langcamp was hijacked with a crew of 12 Filipinos and an Indonesian by Somali pirates in international waters (can’t get much more international than that), and this despite the highly praised and loudly acclaimed (in Germany) “international” German navy mission that echoed through the German press a few weeks back. This was the third ship hijacking this year, by the way.

 

Böse Zungen (malicious tongues) might suggest that this proves yet again how things can actually go wrong once you actually start doing things, actually, even if you are a German, or a German navy. But that would be böse so you won’t be hearing it from me.

 

Nope, nobody down there can stop the Karlsruhe. Nobody down there needs to, I guess.

 

„Die deutsche Marine werdet die Mission als Erfolg – trotz der erneuten Schiffsentführung durch somalische Piraten.“

Activism in action

January 29, 2009 By in Hypocrisy Tags: 1 Comment

When not serving your own country, try serving the interests of another’s, another country’s vested interest in demonstrating against what it insists upon calling an “unlawful war” (Germany only takes part in legal ones, you see).  But at least it’s always a peaceful demonstration here, you know. This sets a good example or something.

 

No war if you want it.

 

Come to Germany. Come to where the asylum is. The political kind, I mean. For, uh, US-Amerikaner, and others like you.

 

“I’m having the time of my life.”

 

“He’s our poster boy.”

Joe not home alone

January 28, 2009 By in History Tags: 2 Comments

Biden the Basher, that formidable tongue-lashing Mother of All Foreign Policy Experts has officially been let off the leash to come to next month’s 45th annual Conference on Security Policy in Munich and let his European friends know (and heaven knows he’s got a lot of them) that Mr. Cleanup Himself (or at least one of them) has come to redress the wrongs that have been wronged for so long so, uh, right.

 

 Let me tell you something...

 

Last year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has been allowed to stay on for a bit, criticized Germany and other usual suspect types of wanting to turn the NATO intervention in Afghanistan into a “two tier” alliance of countries willing to fight and others less so.

 

Like I said, Gates has been allowed to stay on so it might be interesting to see what Joe has to say about the matter, here in Germany, among all his friends. But, then again, practically everything Joe has to say is of interest. If you’ve got the patience to stick it out until he’s finally finished talking, that is.

 

But if you don’t, and many of us don’t, you can just turn down the volume and look at the pictures. I mean, just look at these here. How can you not love watching that guy speak?

 

“Wir haben eine Menge Schaden zu beheben”, sagte sie (Hillary Clinton) am Dienstag in Washington.

Archaeologist discovers untouched 20-year-old GDR apartment

January 27, 2009 By in History Tags: 3 Comments

OK, so it was an architect, but still. Talk about living in a time warp. Or not living in one, I should say.

 

My, how time flies.

 

While renovating a building in Leipzig, an architect stumbled on to what might just be the last traces of what appears to have been a crude form of late communist civilization which existed some 20 million years before our time. OK, so it was only twenty years, but still.

 

Dusty bottles of untouched “Hit-Cola” were left standing on the kitchen table. Proof, I guess, because nobody touched them back then, either.

 

Hmmm, what a strange, ironic and almost hard to believe coincidence that such an apartment should or even could be discovered in the year 2009, exactly twenty years after the fall of THE WALL itself. But like I said, still.

 

PS: Speaking of lost traces, check out these Berlin ones here (thanks for the link, Joe).

 

„Nach Ansicht von Wohnungsmarktexperten ist ein solcher Fund zwar in der Tat selten, aber bei den vielen leerstehenden Altbauwohnungen in Leipzig durchaus möglich.“