This Wine Did Not Age Well

Old photos of an AfD representative posing on a bar with “Hitler wine” in the background have surfaced and the AfD is outraged.

Wine

The thing that disgusts them the most is that her photos were found on Myspace. There will be consequences.

Vor Jahren hat sich Jessica Bießmann in einer Küche fotografieren lassen. Im Hintergrund zu sehen: Ein Regal voller Weinflaschen mit verbotenen Motiven. Es sind Etiketten mit Bildern von Adolf Hitler, darunter steht “Sieg Heil” und “Führerwein”. Auch am Dienstag finden sich die umstrittenen Fotos noch auf der privaten Myspace-Seite der Politikerin. Die Berliner AfD erwägt nun Konsequenzen.

„Ich bedaure, dass es diese Fotos gibt.”

Irresistible Filth?

I guess that’s one thing you could call it.

Filth

As previously reported, the Germans are having big problems meeting their ambitious CO2 emissions targets these days. One of the reasons for this dirty little secret – after having turned off most of their nuclear power plants due to a tsunami in Japan (don’t ask) – is their burning need to burn dirty, filthy, dreckig brown coal, aka lignite.

It is mined in vast, open pits that devour landscapes and villages, leaving Martian vistas of desolation roamed by gigantic excavators straight out of “Mad Max”.

Brown coal made up about 23% of the country’s energy supply last year, and black coal another 14%, according to the Economy Ministry. Renewable energy sources made up 33%—up from 6% in 2000.

Hey, whatever gets you through the dark as black coal night.

“The image of Germany as a country leading on the renewable energy transition is very, very wrong,”

Reality Can Be Like That

Germany’s green dreams run into climate change reality – Berlin’s commitment to stay nuclear free complicates Europe’s push to lower emissions.

Green

The contradictions in Germany’s energy policy are coming home to roost.

It’s struggling to balance efforts to combat climate change while at the same time shutting down its nuclear power plants.

Don’t sweat it, Germany. If you need any advice on how to improve things in the CO2 department just contact the folks in Washington.

“The rushed and improvised exit from nuclear power that some support is not our policy. Recent events prove that pretending otherwise is a pure illusion.”

German Of The Day: Korruption

That means corruption. It’s a foreign word here, though.

Audi

Unless, of course, you’re talking about VW, Daimler, BMW, Audi

Now it’s out that Audi tampered with the chassis numbers of their test vehicles to hamper the emissions scandal investigation going on in Korea. And it looks like this was all directed from Germany.

Please note: The next time Germans get morally outraged about the next big moral outrage in US-Amerika – and it won’t be long – remember that absolutely nobody here in Germany pays the slightest attention to any of this dieselgate made in Germany crime and corruption stuff. They’re all serfs owned by the German automobile industry.

Audi hat jahrelang Fahrgestellnummern von Testautos gefälscht und so die Aufklärung des Abgasskandals in Korea behindert. Die Vorgänge wurden offenbar von Deutschland aus gesteuert.

 

Der Spiegel Analyzes The “Kavanaugh Disaster”

As only Der Spiegel can. And oddly, they almost got it right.

Kavanaugh

For one thing, they were honest enough to admit that it was a disaster – for them, of course – because “the President and the Republicans achieved a great victory.” And then they continue  on with their five-point explanation of why this is such an awful, terrible and unspeakably bad thing.

1. Trumpism reigns. They got that right, too.

2. The Kavanaugh nomination was a farce. They almost got that right. The nomination itself wasn’t a farce, of course, but the freak show that accompanied it most certainly was.

3. Consensus culture is a foreign word. Absolutely correct. Take Germany, for instance, where they call it Konsenskultur. Every German knows that there is no consensus when it comes to Angela Merkel’s migrant madness meltdown, for example, but the difference between Germany and US-Amerika here is that the Germans behave as if there is. Germans normally being the all too direct ones, it is the Americans this time who make no qualms about how divided they are in Trump America.

4. There are no clear rules for dealing with accusations. Not true. Making false accusations, like the ones made against Kavanaugh here, is against the law. American laws allow those falsely accused of a crime to pursue a course of action in court, generally based on defamation of character. And this, I believe, needs to be done here.

5. The Supreme Court is now in a real mess. Well, they got the mess part right, I guess. But the Supreme Court mess is now in the process of being cleaned up, although there is certainly still quite a bit of work yet to do.

All in all, a solid job, Spiegel journalists. I’ll give you a seven for your five points this time. Keep the change.

Mit der Wahl von Donald Trumps Kandidaten Brett Kavanaugh zum Richter auf Lebenszeit am Supreme Court haben der US-Präsident und die Republikaner einen großen Erfolg errungen.

Mysterious

Puzzling. Enigmatic. Inexplicable.

AfD

The latest poll indicates that the AfD has now surpassed the SPD in popularity and is now number two among the political parties in Germany. None of the other parties will work with them, of course. Not yet, anyway. Of course, none of the other parties will ever need to work with them if they get an absolute majority of the vote in the next election.

As for the causes of this continued surge in popularity, none of the smart folks in government, academia or media can figure out why this is happening. I think it’s time to call even more experts, don’t you?

Die Polizei teilte am Samstag mit, der afghanische Asylbewerber leide nach der Einschätzung eines Gutachters an einer tiefgreifenden psychiatrischen Erkrankung.

Germans Feeling Gloomy?

Wow. We’ve never had that one before.

Gloomy

The German economy is booming. Unemployment is at a near-record low. In Europe and around the world, the country is seen as a beacon of wealth and efficiency.

So what’s so mysterious about their gloom? This is Germany. Duh. How could Germans not get gloomy about a situation like that?

But maybe, just maybe, with a little luck things will start to crap out here before too long and everybody can start cheering up again.

Es war einmal ein starkes Land.

Thirty Minutes

Is that a new record?

Monk

It only took thirty minutes for a fake monk to become this Wiesen season’s first Bierleiche. That’s right. The guy was dressed up like a freakin’ monk. But don’t worry about it. He’s in a better place now.

Der Mann habe eine Mönchskutte getragen, sagte die Sprecherin des Sanitätsdienstes Aicher Ambulanz, Ulrike Krivec. “Wir dachten, dass es ein Mönch ist.” Im Laufe der Behandlung habe sich aber herausgestellt, dass es sich bei dem etwa 50 Jahre alten Wiesngast nicht um einen Ordensmann handelte.

Germans Are Green-Minded?

Yeah, I guess. Unless it has to do with their cars.

Because when it comes to the numerous environmental and other crimes committed by VW, BMW, Mercedes & Co. (Dieselgate is just the tip of the iceberg), German car owners just don’t care. These companies could march into to Poland and nobody would say anything.

BMW

Germans are fastidious about separating trash into different recycling bins and have spent untold billions on the so-called Energiewende, the transition from nuclear and fossil-burning fuels for electricity generation to renewable sources.

Just don’t mess with their cars. It may be a cliché that Germans are obsessed with their four-wheeled companions, but that doesn’t make any less true. While all other major sources of greenhouse gas emissions, from households to industry, have seen declines since 1990, transport emissions, which account for 20 percent of the total, have increased.

Die Europäische Kommission lässt bei ihren Kartell-Ermittlungen gegen BMW, Daimler und Volkswagen nicht locker. Die Behörde werde in einer förmlichen Prüfung untersuchen‚ ob die Konzerne unerlaubte Absprachen bei Abgas-Systemen für Diesel- und Benzinmotoren getroffen haben.

It’s Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature

Or fool with her, I should say. Aka The Empress of Europe. Aka Mutti.

Mother Nature

Get in the sack, Mr. Maasen. Come on, get in the sack. It’s time to sack you. You criticized my choice of words. You suggested I have a hand in Germany’s fake news industrial lying press complex. I don’t have a hand in it. I run the damned thing. It is time for you to go.

Rival political factions have been locked in a bitter war of words ever since Mr Maasen, the head of domestic intelligence service the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) contradicted Mrs Merkel over the veracity of a video appearing to show foreigners being attacked on the streets on Chemnitz by neo-Nazi extremists.

Laut einem Bericht lässt Kanzlerin Merkel Verfassungsschutzchef Maaßen fallen – ohne Rücksicht auf dessen Chef Innenminister Seehofer.