Category Archives: Habitudes

Germany’s Green Planners Confident That Growing Wind And Solar Power Will Lead To Even Higher Power Costs

May 9, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

But who cares, right? There’ still Luft nach oben (room for improvement). Germans are only number two when it comes to paying the highest electricity bills in Europe (only the Danes pay more).

Strom

Germans already footing the second-highest electricity bills in Europe may face even higher costs from the country’s decision to exit nuclear power early next decade. While there’s no risk of blackouts, costs could rise if transmission gaps emerge, according to Germany’s Bnetza regulator. Europe’s biggest power market is closing its last atomic plants in 2022 and is counting on a mix of mothballed lignite plants, wind and solar power expansion and grid stability measures to keep outages down…

Consumers this year may pay about 24 billion euros ($26.4 billion) in compulsory clean-energy-support fees, levies that are added directly to power bills.

“The lights will stay on. Yet there are two risks in bridging power gaps, namely redispatch and intervention in the market to drive generation up or down that may be cost factors.”

German Of The Day: Mediale Erfindung

May 8, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Horror, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

That means medial invention. Take the Schulz effect, for instance. Please.

Schulz

Remember the good old days when medial inventions used to last for years? You know, things like Waldsterben (the dying of the woods) or Rinderwahn (mad cow disease)? Now you’re lucky if you can get three months out of one (the Schulz effect, for instance, was created and released from the laboratory just this past February and officially died yesterday).

I dunno, I think it’s this young whippersnapper snowflake generation these days with all their wall-to-wall social media and instant gratification issues. No respect, I tell you. Well, kids, each generation gets the medial invention it deserves so this one’s for you. And you have no one else to blame but yourselves. Three months. Pitiful.

In February, Social Democratic chancellor candidate Martin Schulz was riding a wave of popularity. Now, his party has lost two state elections in a row and another state vote is looming on Sunday. Can he get his campaign back on track?

Alles ist Albigs Schuld – finden Schulz und die Bundes-SPD.

Germans Can’t Stop Laughing These Days

May 7, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

This is a real shocker, folks. A new study indicates that 29 percent of Germans laugh less than five times a day or not at all.

Lachen

Wow. They really seem to have made great progress here these past few years. I remember when it used to be 79 percent, or higher.

But, sadly, this is also an indication of the sorry state our troubled world is in: The study also shows that Germans are mostly amused by others’ bad luck (Schadenfreude).

Lachen ist gesund – ein Gemeinplatz. Doch wenn eine Krankenkasse jetzt 15 Minuten herzhaftes Lachen pro Tag empfiehlt, kann das sehr anstrengend sein. Dann sind wir doch lieber unlustig.

Berlin May Day Protesters Too Bourgeois For This Anti-Bourgeois Nonsense

May 1, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

And too old, I guess. Everything is “relatively calm” yet again. Boring.

May

In 1987, far-left rioters battled with police for 12 hours, looting shops and burning cars. They were fighting against what they called a “bourgeois” celebration of the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin.

Rioting on May 1 then became a regular tradition in Berlin, starting in West Berlin and spreading to the East following reunification in 1990. In 1989 protests 364 police officers were injured. In 2000 the extent of the violence led to an attempted ban on protests the following year. In 2009 after a few years of relative calm, 273 police were injured with some rioters facing attempted murder charges for throwing Molotov cocktails.

Walpurgnisnacht und 1. Mai verliefen bisher weitgehend ruhig – trotz zahlreicher Demonstrationen. Tausende Menschen sind außerdem in Kreuzberg auf dem Myfest unterwegs.

The Case Of The Missing SPD Candidate

April 26, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Horror, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

New properties of the Schulz effect have been discovered by political scientists in Germany.

Martin

Similar to the Doppler effect, the Schulz effect is also characterized by a a distinct change of pitch (in this case hype) heard when the media vehicle (in this case Schulz himself) sounds its horn when approaching, passing and then receding from the observer (preferably forever). You can hardly hear a sound from him these days, in other words. And this is a good thing.

Der Hype um Martin Schulz lässt nach, die CDU liegt in Umfragen vor der SPD, die Mehrheit in NRW wackelt. Noch muss sich Schulz nicht sorgen, aber was ist da passiert?

German Of The Day: Unmutsbekundungen

April 25, 2017 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

That means protest. In this particular case it means hissing, however.

Ivanka

But as far as I can tell, this has something to do with moving forward the cause for women or womanhood or femaleness or whatever. So it’s necessary or something.

Ivanka Trump defended her father at a women’s panel in Berlin Tuesday after attendees hissed and booed when she attempted to champion her father’s commitment to women’s issues.

„Einige Sichtweisen ihres Vaters über Frauen in der Vergangenheit lassen es fraglich erscheinen, wie er Frauen wirklich stärken will.”

German Of The Day: Exportüberschuss

April 20, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

That means export or trade surplus. In this case the German trade surplus, of course.

Export

Also see: Böse Buben. That means bad boys.

Christine Lagarde (IMF) and Donald Trump may not have much in common at first glance but one thing they seem to agree upon is Germany’s trade surplus. That is, Germany exports more to, say, the USA than it imports from that country (same procedure with practically every other country Germany deals with, too). And it’s been like forever already.

So Germany, just in case you didn’t know it, you’re being a very bad boy.

Deutschland wird zum bösen Buben des Welthandels.

Rotten Administrative Watchdog Worried About Lack Of Lousy Public Service Officials

April 19, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Germany’s Bundesverwaltungsamt (Federal Office of Administration), responsible for overseeing the lousy service traditionally inflicted upon defenseless German citizens by the crappy public service officials they administer so poorly, has expressed concern that the number of said officials is much too low to guarantee the continued level of awful service these citizens have become accustomed to and therefore insists that tons more of these losers be hired in the near future or sooner. Or else.

Offcials

“That’s right,” said the only incompetent high-level and ridiculously overpaid official anybody could locate who wasn’t home playing sick or out getting a Kur (a well-loved “treatment” scam here). “Hire a whole bunch more of folks like us or the service gets even worse. Any questions?”

In der Verwaltung droht der Personalnotstand: Das befürchtet der Präsident des Bundesverwaltungsamtes Christoph Verenkotte und fordert ein “riesiges Einstellungsprogramm.”

Take From The Rich

April 18, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

And give it to the SPD, Left party, Greens, etc. They’ll give it to the poor later, right?

Earn

This is getting increasing more difficult to do in Germany, however, as a recent study reveals that the top ten percent of the working population (those who earn the most) already pay half of all income tax the country takes in.

And as recently reported, an average earner here already has to give up nearly half of what he earns. Sheesh. Crime just doesn’t pay anymore. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Robin Hoodlum kind of criminal, I mean.

Die Studie zeigt auch, wie stark Gering- und Durchschnittsverdiener durch Steuern und Sozialabgaben belastet werden. So zahle zum Beispiel ein Single mit einem Bruttogehalt von 1.940 Euro im Monat 46 Prozent Steuern und Abgaben. Ein alleinstehender Durchschnittsverdiener mit 3.250 Euro monatlich müsse 51 Prozent abführen, also mehr als jeden zweiten Euro.