Category Archives: Habitudes

Eco-Power?

November 22, 2016 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

As in enormous-cost-power?

eco

And green power must be short for greenback power, right? Only they have to pay in euros here in Germany.

You’re never going to believe this: Energy prices will be rising dramatically again next year in Germany (same procedure as every year). It has something to do with this little thing they call the “eco-power levy” here (levy sounds better than tax). It’s going up another 8.3 percent. But it’s for the Energiewende so that’s a good thing, or something. Hey. It’s not easy being the world’s leader in renewable energy but somebody has to do it. And you still don’t mind paying for it… And you still don’t mind paying for it… And you still…

Öko-Strom-Umlage steigt um 8,3 Prozent.

German Of The Day: Multikulti

November 20, 2016 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

That means multiculti, as in multicultural. And this is a word that is suddenly “out” for Angela Merkel’s CDU, for some inexplicable reason.

Multikulti

But to compensate for the loss, Modernisierungsverlierer (modernization losers) is now officially “in” with them. And just in case you were wondering, we are once again moving into election season in Germany and these “losers” are the same ones who have helped parties like the AfD become “winners” in recent years. Sounds vaguely familiar somehow but I can’t seem to put my finger on it at the moment.

Im Entwurf für den Leitantrag, der beim Parteitag Anfang Dezember beschlossen werden soll, sprechen die Christdemokraten ausdrücklich jene Bürger an, “die sich als Modernisierungsverlierer sehen und derzeit noch bei populistischen Parteien von rechts und links ihre Zuflucht suchen”.

Too Big To Fail

November 18, 2016 By in Habitudes, Helections, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

And I’m not talking about her weight or anything, OK?

Merkel

No Plan B, no competitors in sight (who she hasn’t already crushed politically, I mean) and in power since 1953, Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold a news conference this weekend during which she will announce whether she will run for another term as chancellor or not. Or for Mutti, if you prefer. Many smart politico types here think that the chances are relatively high that this might just maybe be the case.

Der vielbeschworene “geeignete Zeitpunkt” scheint gekommen: Im Rahmen einer Parteiklausur dürfte Angela Merkel am Sonntag ihre vierte Kanzlerkandidatur bekanntgeben.

Egyptians Better At This, Too

November 17, 2016 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Not only do Egyptians beat Germans when it comes to completing building projects (German construction sites are built to last and last and last), they are also better than the Germans when it comes to reducing CO2 emission levels (and they don’t preach about it all day long while they’re doing it like the Germans do, either).

CO2

A new ranking of how well countries are working to limit climate change shows that Germany has fallen behind countries like Egypt and Mexico to 29th place worldwide.

PS: But when it comes to completing construction site projects, not even the Egyptians can whop the Japanese.

German Of The Day: Dingsda

November 16, 2016 By in Habitudes, Hideology Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means thingamajig, doohickey or even what’s-his-name.

Dingsda

Anyway, Dingsda is visiting Berlin again today. For another “iconic” speech, I assume. As long as it’s his last one, von mir aus (as far as I care).

Am Abend landet er in Tegel und er bleibt bis Freitag in Berlin, was auch zu zahlreichen Straßensperrungen führen wird.

Germany To Take Over Leadership Of The Western World

November 15, 2016 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hideology, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

This is one of the best satires I have read in a long, long time.*

America

One-Hundred Years of Fear – America Has Abdicated Its Leadership of the West

For 100 years, the United States was the leader of the free world. With the election of Donald Trump, America has now abdicated that role. It is time for Europe, and Angela Merkel, to step into the void…

The leaders of the West, minus America, face monumental tasks ahead. They are tasks for German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

* This is a satire, right?

Expat Democrats Utterly Speechless But Vow To Remain Smug

November 10, 2016 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hideology, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Smug

The crowd of expats who packed the Democrats Abroad election night party in Berlin to watch live election coverage by American broadcaster CNN was conspicuously young and conspicuously female. There had been much talk about apathy among so-called millennials in this campaign, but you wouldn’t have known that in the German capital…

Of course that was then and this is now.

“I’m in too much of an emotional state,” said expat Democrat X, when asked what she thought about the new President-elect. “No comment. But wait. I will say that you can bet we will bounce back from this and be just as self-righteous, priggish and self-satisfied as we ever have been. Mabe even more so. But just not right now, OK?”

German Engineering At Its Finest

November 6, 2016 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Fortschritt durch Technik. That’s Audi’s motto and means progress through technology.

Audi

And their latest advance in defeat device technology is a great step forward in consumer deception indeed.

Audi’s defeat device, camouflaged as a warm-up function, keys in on movements of the steering wheel to detect if the car is in the lab or not. Once in normal traffic, however, this warm-up function is deactivated and the vehicle switches to a higher fuel consumption mode, thus producing more CO2. Brilliant, don’t you think?

Come on, America. Why can’t you produce technology like this? These new fangled electric cars everybody is talking about these days don’t have any of this cool stuff.

So schummelte Audi bei CO² – Mit einer Software sollen Messergebnisse manipuliert worden sein.

Turkey

October 25, 2016 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

Turkey

Because somebody has to admire them.

Germany’s ammunition exports skyrocketed in the first half of 2016, a leaked report has revealed. Turkey, currently suppressing its political opposition, has moved up the list of the country’s best customers.

PS: And who says that these creepy clowns popping up all over Germany these days can’t be funny? Boy arrested after stabbing teen in clown mask in Germany