When The German Anti-Terror Units Aren’t Sick The German Taliban Are

Only Germans can come up with Pretraumatic Stress Disorder. But now we can take this puppy up a notch higher.

Taliban

“German Taliban” Josef D. (the guy in the middle with the skin problem) joins a terrorist group, gets himself a Kalaschnikow, goes to Afghanistan intending to do that jihad thing but then gets Durchfall (diarrhea) and therefore cannot take part in all the cool attacks planned on US installations there so he has to return home to Germany where he promptly gets busted (I’m not sure for what, though).

Now his lawyer informs us that his Schuldfähigkeit (legal culpability) needs to be looked into very intensely and  thoroughly-like because not only does this guy have terrible awful diarrhea problems, he also suddenly seems to be suffering from some kind of mysterious mental disorder. Uh, wait a minute. Don’t all terrorists suffer from some kind of mysterious mental disorder?

Anyways, this all has a certain logic to it if you ask me. Germany is the number one country when it comes to doctor visits, after all. Politicians get sick and throw in the towel here all the time. German intellectuals regularly get ill or “burn out” while analyzing the world around them. A huge portion of German youth suffers from “social phobia” and half a million Germans are hopelessly “addicted” to the Internet. Hell, even the German Pope gets sick and has to go into early retirement, for crying out loud.

It’s just not easy being a German, I guess. Without getting sick, I mean. But like doesn’t somebody out there – who is German – have to do it?

Wegen einer chronischen Durchfallerkrankung habe er aber nicht an Anschlägen und Angriffen der Gruppe auf afghanische und US-Einrichtungen teilnehmen können, so die Bundesanwaltschaft.

German Word Of The Day: Zwangsumlage

Zwangs- = compulsory. Umlage = levy, share in the costs. Put those two together and what do you get? Forced to share. But we’re talking about money here folks so let’s  just call it another tax and get it over with already.

Strom

This latest planned tax consists of forcing German households to purchase so-called “smart meters” or modern electricity meters that are supposed to regulate energy consumption by drawing electricity from that so wonderfully green German energy grid whenever this energy is cheaper. You know, like when hell freezes over?

This will only set back German consumers another 70 or 80 euros after already having been hit with a seven percent energy bill increase planned for next year, too (the seven can and will change, of course, and we all now in which direction it will be going).

Turn it around as much as you want. Anyway you turn this German energy turnaround around, you’ll always get the same result. Once you’ve turned it around, I mean. She is like way too expensive, señor.

But what can you expect from a government that is about to go retro and way back in the Wayback Machine to the good old days of SPD Never-Never Land again?

“Verbraucher sollten mit attraktiven Angeboten überzeugt, statt mit immer mehr ordnungsrechtlichen Einbaupflichten gezwungen werden.”

PS: The next German word of the day will be Abzocke. Here’s a tip: It means rip-off.

Germany Soon To Get The Government It Voted For

Not. In other countries you usually get the government you vote for. But not here in Germany. At least not this time.

Angela Merkel

Close only counts in horseshoes and dancing (and hand grenades). And Angela Merkel getting close to having an absolute majority in the German election two months ago just wasn’t close enough. So let’s hear it for proportional representation! The FDP is gone. The Greens are still licking their wounds. What’s left? The SPD and the Left party are left, that’s who’s left.

So now the losers are dictating the agenda. In more ways than one.

No, it’s not good news. And it gets worse. As part of his pivot to the left, Gabriel has promised that the Social Democrats will be open to coalitions with the Left party, the heirs of the East German Communists. Since the SPD, the Left and the Greens already hold a majority in parliament, the temptation for Gabriel to break with Merkel in, say, two years to form a “red-red-green” coalition with himself as chancellor could become irresistible.

Taxing Nuclear Fuel Rods That Aren’t Being Used?

You can never be too rich or too thin, I guess. And if you’re Germany, you can never tax too much, either.

Taxation

Germany’s biggest utilities, still reeling from the country’s early exit from nuclear power, scored a major victory Tuesday when a Hamburg court said the national tax on nuclear fuel rods may violate European law.

The Hamburg finance court said it “cannot assess beyond any doubt” whether the tax on nuclear fuel used for electricity generation complies with European law. It will now ask the European Court of Justice to decide whether the levy conforms with rules that prohibit member states from creating new taxes on electricity for “general budget financing purposes.”

The tax was introduced at the beginning of 2011 and came as part of an extension of nuclear reactors’ operating lives that the government had agreed on. However, the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima power plant in March of that year triggered a U-turn in German energy policy, with Chancellor Angela Merkel ordering the immediate shutdown of the oldest plants and the early phaseout of nuclear energy by 2022. Out of 17 reactors that were in operation in March 2011, only nine are still producing power. But the fuel-rod tax remains in place, to the utilities’ annoyance.

Das Hamburger Finanzgericht will vom Europäischen Gerichtshof (EuGH) in Luxemburg zentrale Fragen zur umstrittenen Brennelementesteuer klären lassen.

SPD In Coalition Government = Gender Quota Legislation

Thank goodness this gender quota nonsense is finally about to be settled so a new coalition government can be formed in Germany.

Quota

Word has it that the CDU has agreed to let the SPD in if the proposed legislation stipulates only that each gender will be represented by at least one gender each.

German companies listed on the stock exchange will need at least 30% of supervisory board members to be female from 2016, according to proposed legislation.

At Least It Didn’t Happen To The Muslims Or The Jews

This is nothing to get cross about or anything, I guess, but the OSCE reports that there were 414 cases of anti-Christian abuse and attacks in Germany last year.

Cross

The offences included acts of violence, church desecration and theft.

Zu den erfassten Delikten zählen Gewalttaten, Kirchenschändungen und Diebstahl.

We May Be Outraged (as usual) But We Ain’t Stupid

Grant political asylum to a Straftäter (criminal offender)? Not even Germany can pull that one off. Angie & Co. just said nein to this indistinct possibility.

Snowden

It was nice for leading figures in the German Outrage Industry to pretend like they could for fifteen minutes or so, I guess, but sooner or later even the best/worst of them have to come back down to Planet Earth again.

Die Voraussetzungen für eine Aufnahme des Whistleblowers lägen nicht vor, sagte Regierungssprecher Steffen Seibert.

PS: But it ain’t over till it’s over, Amerika. Vice President of German Parliament (one of six – nice work if you can get it) Claudia Roth HERSELF is still planning to press criminal charges or something. Someone is suspected of having actually listened once to what she said on her little green cellphone – eavesdropping-wise, I mean. And I pity the fool who gets in her way (thanks A.K.).

Claudia Roth

German Left Rep Clearly Aroused During Snowden Visit

Green politician Hans-Christian Ströebele had the time of his long left life yesterday when he got the breathtaking opportunity to meet with prized US whistleblower (consipirator, betrayer, informer, defector, spy, etc.) Edward Snowden HIMSELF, up close and personal in Moscow ITSELF, to discuss the possibility of Snowden’s two-timing help in a German parliamentary investigation into sneaky US spy activities.

Snowden

Luckly, a German TV news team just happened to be in the vicinity at the time and was able to document this historic meeting for history ITSELF. The team had their hands full, however, just trying to keep a clearly erregt (aroused) Ströebele from stammering all over himself, so impressed was he with the snitchy Snowden. Snowden being Edward Snowden, after all.

After intensive three-hour questioning, Ströebele and Co. where finally able to determine that the American turncoat poster boy “clearly knows a lot” and that the only way Ströebele could possibly get more excited than he already was would be if Snowden could somehow be convinced to come to Germany to squeal some more there. I mean here. Please do oh pretty please do please!

“Er hat klar zu erkennen gegeben, dass er viel weiß.”

NSA Not Monitoring Chancellor’s Cell Phone

Talk about your sleeper cell phone.

Handy

The Obama administration has denied that the NSA is monitoring the communications on chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone.

This was confirmed by NSA officials after Merkel had called to discuss the matter with Obama on her cell phone.

Merkel und Obama hätten in dem Telefonat übereingestimmt, die Kooperation der Geheimdienste beider Länder zu intensivieren.