Category Archives: Habitudes

Germany Reassures NATO Partners It Will Continue To Miss Defense Spending Goals

February 6, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

Worried that the German government’s tax revenues are likely to decrease in coming years due to a slowing economy, German defense officials were quick to explain to their NATO partners that this will have absolutely no effect on the country’s continued failure to increase defense expenditures.

Defens

“Whether tax revenues increase or not is really not the issue here,” these officials stressed. “We have absolutely no intention of raising our defense spending under any circumstances. We do this to ensure that our NATO partners will be able to plan effectively for future increased defense spending on their part and thus continue to protect us as they have done so in the past, pretty much free of charge. For us, anyway. But still.”

“We have time until the end of March. Let us negotiate.”

German Of The Day: Milliardenloch

February 5, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means a billion-euro hole. You know, as in the ones that will be appearing in the coming German federal budgets?

Loch

The money has been rolling in to Berlin for years but it looks like those days are about to end. Germany’s current finance minister, Olaf Scholz (SPD), warns that the government will be missing some 25 billion euros by 2023. No new expenditures possible, folks. Not unless there are cuts somewhere else. Right. Good luck with that, pal. You’re with the SPD, for crying out loud (that stands for Spend other People’s Dough).

And it sure would be a shocker if Germany now used this as an excuse not to live up to its defense spending commitments, wouldn’t it? See how this works, folks?

Nach Jahren sprudelnder Steuereinnahmen droht dem Bund wegen der abflauenden Konjunktur ein 25-Milliarden-Loch im Haushalt bis 2023.

Speaking Of Mangelhaft…

January 30, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

As reported yesterday, the guy in charge of inspecting the Bundeswehr has given it yet another inadequate (mangelhaft) rating.

Steinmeier

Now the President of Germany himself, that guy up there, forget his name, can  personally confirm this. He is currently gestrandet (stranded) in Ethiopia after making a state visit because his Bundeswehr One or whatever the hell they call it is, well, she is broken.

Anybody know anybody passing through Ethiopia the next few days who might be willing to pick up the President of Germany and bring him to the nearest bus station or something?

Die Unglücksserie bei den deutschen Regierungsfliegern reißt nicht ab. Nach Entwicklungsminister Müller sitzt nun auch Bundespräsident Steinmeier zeitweise in Afrika fest. Ein Defekt an seiner Airbus-Maschine muss erst noch repariert werden.

German Of The Day: Mangelhaft

January 29, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means inadequate.

Mangelhaft

And that’s what Germany’s Wehrbeauftragter (Defense Commissioner) has to say about the conditions of Germany’s Bundeswehr. It’s still inadequate. I know this isn’t news or anything but it’s a cool word, don’t you think?

Funny, the Bundeswehr has been inadequate for as long as anyone can remember. At what point can you safely conclude that this inadequacy is intentional?

“Die Lage der Bundeswehr als „nach wie vor mangelhaft.”

Germans Recycle Their Plastic, Right?

January 24, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

And this makes them feel good about themselves. They do it for the environment, you see. Their environment, it turns out. Because when all their plastic finally gets processed in their big plastic recycle machine thingy or whatever the hell it is, most of it has somehow ended up in… Souutheast Asia. It’s magic.

Plastic

Officially, the country’s recycling rate is 36 percent. But critics say this number is far from the ugly truth. A new packaging law even states that by 2022, 63 percent of all plastic waste should be recycled. But Peter Kurth, director of the Association of German Disposal-, Water- and Resource-Economy (BDE), said he considers this number utopian…

What cannot be economically recycled usually finds its way to the incinerator, for example in plants in the chemical or cement industries, Kurth said, where burning plastic becomes a substitute fuel for oil and gas. But there is more plastic waste than all cement and chemical plants in Germany need. Kurth said what is not sold to customers in Germany is sold to Asia.

“While Germans are world champions of trash separation, not everything they toss into the yellow bin reserved for plastic packaging gets recycled. It is often incinerated. Statistics show that only 15 percent will actually be reused.”

“Germany” To Protect Consumers From Rising Electricity Prices?

January 23, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The rising electricity prices that “Germany” caused in the first place, you mean?

Consumers

Well, not quite. The “German taxpayer” will have to protect consumers from these rising prices, as usual. It’s a brilliant business plan that only governments like “Germany” can think up. The consumer/taxpayer pays twice, see? It’s not like anybody has to ask them.

Germany is planning to protect consumers and manufacturers from the impact of abandoning cheap coal-fired power, which Berlin is looking to ditch for environmental reasons, according to a government body’s draft paper.

The Coal Commission, which is tasked with organizing the exit from coal, said in a 133-page draft document seen by Reuters that companies and private households should be spared from heavy price increases.

“The necessary funds must be made available by the state to finance the recommended measures.”

No Nukes, No Coal, No Agribusiness…

January 20, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

No plastic, no non-refundable bottles and cans, no speeding…

Agribusiness

No meat, no new economy, no tourism, no gentrification, no toxic masculinity, no defense spending, no borders? Hell no. But that’s just the tip of the German ICEBERG OF NO. Let’s call it the German NICEBERG. Germans think positive, you see, and want to move ahead, progressively, into the future. After all the no’s are said and done – and that might take some time yet, mind you – whatever’s left, well, that’s the brave new future.

Thousands of farmers from across Germany and their supporters protested at Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate on Saturday, calling for climate-friendly agriculture and healthy food.

“We are fed up with the agricultural industry.”

German Of The Day: Tempolimit

January 18, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hostility, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

That means speed limit.

Speed Limit

Odd, yesterday we dealt with getting caught in traffic jams in a country that doesn’t have any speed limits (on parts of the Autobahn) and now it’s time to introduce such speed limits in the same country? At least that’s what the commission National Platform for the Future of Mobility is proposing, whatever that is. Look, these drivers aren’t going anywhere now as it is. How will reducing their speed get them nowhere any safer? Oh, it’s about CO2 again. I should have known.

Limit the maximum speed on the German Autobahn to 130 km/h? This could lead to another revolution, folks. And it probably won’t be a bloodless one this time.

Kommission ist sich der Brisanz bewusst – Noch ist es nur ein Entwurf, doch die Ideen der Kommission “Nationale Plattform Zukunft der Mobilität” haben es in sich. Sie sollen den CO2-Ausstoß bis 2030 um die Hälfte senken.

German Of The Day: Stau

January 17, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

That means traffic jam. And there were 745,000 thousand of them last year on Germany’s highways, folks. A new German record.

Stau

Experts have calculated that if you were to place all these traffic jammed automobiles bumper to bumper it would give you a stretch of automobiles having a total length of 1.5 million kilometers. That wouldn’t do you any good, though. You’d still be in a Stau.

So please remember this the next time someone raves about being able to drive as fast as you want on parts of the German Autobahn. That’s true, of course, but it will invariably be on the parts of the German Autobahn with traffic jams on them..

Die Fahrzeuge standen auf einer Gesamtlänge von rund 1,5 Millionen Kilometern.

German Of The Day: Verharmlosung

January 14, 2019 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hideology, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means to play something down, to make it harmless.

Verharmlosung

You know, like the ideology pursued by the murdered “revolutionary socialists” (communists) Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht that gets played down, made harmless? They are worshiped as cult figures by the German left. They might even beat Che Guevara in the pantheon of mythical, romantic demigods of the revolutionary left. They may not have been the monster that guy was but that’s only because they didn’t have the time to get there.

On Sunday morning, some 10,000 people braved the rain and cold to march through eastern Berlin and place red carnations at the graves of Rosa Luxemburg and her comrade, Karl Liebknecht.

The march was commemorating 100 years since the brutal execution of the two revolutionary socialists on January 15, 1919…

In November 1918, a revolt by sailors and soldiers led to the overthrow of the Hohenzollern monarchy and the end of the war. In December, the Spartacist League renamed itself the German Communist Party (KPD) and Luxemburg asserted that they would not try to seize power without the support of the majority of Germans. Yet when a second revolt broke out on January 5, 1919, she and Liebknecht gave the movement their full support. The uprising quickly faltered and the SPD leadership ordered the army and right-wing paramilitaries, the Freikorps, to crush it.

On the night of January 15, Luxemburg and Liebknecht were abducted, tortured in the luxury Hotel Eden, and then driven separately to the nearby Tiergarten Park and murdered. Liebknecht was delivered to the city morgue while Luxemburg was dumped into a canal.

“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.”