German Of The Day: Spießer

May 1, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, History, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Germany, Hamburg, Humor, Language, May 1, Senseless Violence, Tradition 3 Comments

A Spießer is a fuddy-duddy. You know, like those fussy, old-fashioned and traditionalist folks who still insist on burning things down on May 1 in Germany?

Incapable of learning any new tricks, and still living in a fantasy world based upon stories about some mythical, imaginary past that their Spießer grandparents and parents read to them as small children, they are no longer able to understand that nobody in today’s real world is interested in their outmoded tastes and manners anymore and, accordingly, becoming frustrated by the lack of attention they receive when resorting to violence, resort to violence.

Traditionsgemäß haben zum 1. Mai linke Gruppen in Berlin und Hamburg demonstriert.

Free Choice, More Convenience, Lower Prices?

April 29, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking Tags: Airbnb, Bans, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Government Regulation, Interventionism, Regulation, Rent, Vacation Rentals Leave a comment

Not in our city, buddy. I mean Airbnb buddy. Not if we from the we’re-from-the-government-and-we’re-here-to-help faction can do anything about it.

We like things regulated here in Berlin. You know, we like things managed, micro-managed, even nano-managed or nanny-managed, if you prefer. What else do we have this oppressive Bevormundungsstaat (paternalistic state) for?

Looking to rent an apartment on your next vacation to Berlin? Starting Sunday, you can basically forget about it. From May 1, Germany’s capital is banning landlords from renting out apartments to short-term visitors, with only a few exceptions permitted.

The penalty for breaking the law is a substantial €100,000 ($113,000) fine — levied on people renting their homes, never on the guests themselves. There will still be some loopholes that allow a few vacation apartments to persist, but it seems that, in Berlin at least, the astronomical rise of Airbnb and other short-stay rental sites is effectively over.

Das Wohnungsangebot in Berlin bei Airbnb ist kleiner geworden. Mehr als 4000 Objekte wurden laut einem Medienbericht gestrichen. Offizielle Begründung: Sie böten “kein authentisches Reiseerlebnis”.

Germany To Receive Electroshock Therapy

April 27, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Automobiles, Electric Cars, German, Germans, Germany, Government Waste, Subsidies Leave a comment

In another electrifying example of tax dollar waste (or in this case tax euro waste), Angela Merkel’s government has just made a deal with automakers to spend some 1.2 billion euros on incentives to boost sluggish electric car sales in Germany.

“The goal is to move forward as quickly as possible on electric vehicles,” one high-ranking government official said while attaching the electrodes to the German nation’s sweaty forehead. “With this, we are giving an impetus.”

And if that first shock doesn’t work, who cares? This is renewable energy they’re using here, folks.

Just over 30,000 electric vehicles, which are more expensive than conventional models, have been sold in Germany. That’s a tiny fraction of the more than 3 million cars bought each year in a country which has historically leaned on diesel technology to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.

Hysteria Half-Life Not Yet Reached In Germany

April 26, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, History, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Atomic energy, Chernobyl, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Nuclear power, Radiation, Renewable energy Leave a comment

Nor will it be any time soon. It must be artificially maintained in order to justify the German Energiewende, you see.

Thirty years after the Chernobyl disaster, it has become clear that radioactivity might be less harmful than originally thought. Some researchers even believe it may be beneficial in small doses.

That is a surprising finding. Three decades ago, half of Western Europe was contaminated with weakly radioactive precipitation. The public at large was taught to view the ubiquitous radioactivity as particularly insidious.

But now, apparently not everything that gives off radiation is bad after all. The body seems to be able to cope with low doses of radon. “We are continuing to search for damage to the genome,” says Fournier, “but so far we aren’t seeing anything.”

Who would voluntarily breathe in radioactive gas? These days, there are people who do. They swear by the notorious noble gas radon, created by the decay of uranium: They inhale it deeply.

Money Doesn’t Stink In Germany

April 21, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Cash, Corruption, Crime, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Money Laundering 2 Comments

That’s because it gets laundered here so much. Get it?

Over 100 billion euros gets processed here every year. They even call it Geldwäsche (money washing). That sounds a lot more, I dunno, cleaner than laundering does, don’t you think?

Germany is considered an El Dorado for criminals who want to launder their money, a study for the Finance Ministry has found.

Money laundering deals that take place outside of the finance sector go largely undetected in Germany – meaning a large proportion of all illegal business is never found, the report claims.

So like why go to the trouble of opening some fake offshore company in Panama?

Nur Bares ist Wahres?

DiscrimiNation

April 19, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Discrimination, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Studies, Surveys Leave a comment

Get it? Nation?

And you thought you had it bad where you live (and of course you do) but here in Germany one out of every three Germans gets discriminated against regularly.

That’s right. Germans just don’t like Germans and they refuse to treat them fairly. They treat them like second-class citizens, which, in a way, well, they are. But so are the other two-thirds so why just pick them out to be treated like Dreck (dirt) like that? It just ain’t fair.

And the latest numbers (see the graph in the article) show that Germans get treated like Dreck whether it is at work or at play or while shopping or over at the courthouse or in the hospital or at school or in the media or even on the Internet. Like right here, for example. They just don’t get no respect.

But don’t worry because these Germans have had it up to here and are now going to start taking each and every one of each other to court about this, without discrimination. I mean indiscriminately.

“Es muss endlich möglich sein, Betroffene vor Gericht effektiv zu unterstützen – wie es in vielen anderen europäischen Ländern längst möglich ist.”

Girls Just Want To Have Fun

April 15, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Boehmermann, Crime, Erdogan, Free speech, Germany, ISIS, Merkel, Safia S., Satire, Terror, Terrorists, Turkey 2 Comments

German prosecutors have said a 15-year-old girl who stabbed a police officer was conducting a “martyrdom operation” for the militant “Islamic State” (IS) group. The teen had previously met with IS members in Turkey.

I’m sure she’ll be punished harshly for her actions. By German standards, I mean.

Meanwhile, when it comes to more serious crimes like free speech… I mean serious things like thought crimes…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Friday that her government will grant a Turkish request for the prosecution of Jan Boehmermann after he recited a crude poem about Turkey’s president, despite “diverging opinions” within the German ruling coalition.

“We are Germans, renowned for our world-famous sense of humor.”

German Of The Day: Fiasko

April 14, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Government Interference, Interventionism, Renewable energy, Taxation, Waste, Wind Energy Leave a comment

That means fiasco. You know, like the state-ordained Energiewende?

Berlin likes to think of itself as a green-energy example to the rest of the world. It sure is.

It makes you wonder if there’s any form of energy-price signal that governments won’t ignore. Germany’s 16-year-old Energiewende, or energy transformation, already has wrecked the country’s energy market in its quest to wean the economy off fossil fuels and nuclear power. Traditional power plants, including those that burn cleaner gas, have been closing left and right while soaring electricity prices push industries overseas and bankrupt households. Job losses run to the tens of thousands.

But now Berlin is going to fix all of this – again.

Derzeit gehe der Ausbau zu schnell und werde zu erheblichen Mehrkosten bei der Umlage zur Ökostrom-Förderung führen.

Speaking Of State Control…

April 6, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: German, Germans, Germany, GEZ, Language, Nanny State, Patermalism, Prison, State Control, Taxation, Television Leave a comment

There may not be any punishment here for producing awful television shows but if YOU get sassy and don’t pay your GEZ TV tax (or “mandatory fee,” as the tax collectors prefer to call it) you can go to jail.

I’m not making this up. All German households must shell out 17.50 euros ($20) a month to watch great entertainment like Traumshiff, Lindenstrasse and Tatort, Tatort, Tatort as well as be submitted to propagandistic-indoctrination-like nightly news programs à la the Tagesschau by those good old fashioned unelected and nameless state TV official folks over there at the ARD and the ZDF (exhale now). Or else.

A woman was freed from prison after a court in Chemnitz had admitted that they had kept her in custody for 61 days because of her refusal to pay the GEZ fees.

Regional state broadcaster MDR applied for an arrest warrant against Sieglinde Baumert in September 2015 in an attempt to force her to sign a statement about her assets, which she refused because, as she told “Die Welt” newspaper, “With my signature I would confirm the legality of the mandatory fees.”

“I feel patronized, I get the decision taken away from me about what I’m paying my money for.”

Censorship Is For Everyone

April 5, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Censorship, Freedom of Speech, German, Germans, Germany, Justice, Language, Law, Lawsuits, Rammstein, State Control Leave a comment

Just like Liebe.

Hey, you know the deal here in Germany: Anything that is not expressly allowed is strictly forbidden. Or at least very, very, very suspicious. You know, like free speech?

Rammstein has filed a lawsuit against Germany for having temporarily indexed the album “Liebe ist für alle da,” said a spokesperson of the Bonn Regional Court on Monday (04.04.2016). The rock band is seeking 66,000 euros (nearly $75,000) in damages.

In 2009, the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons, a German governmental agency responsible for listing works that could potentially harm youths, had decided that one of the songs of the album, “Ich tu dir weh,” as well as the pictures in the booklet accompanying the CD, were “brutalizing” and “immoral.” The entire album was indexed.

Once a work gets listed by the organization, it may not be advertised and can only be sold under strict conditions – limiting its potential success.

Ist alles, was nicht ausdrücklich verboten ist, erlaubt?

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Habitudes