Category Archives: Habitudes

When will this drought ever end?

December 23, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

You know, the drought we were all told to worry about a few months back?

I’m telling you. Droughts in the summer, rainstorms in the winter. These climate crisis extremes are a real bitch.

A storm brings strong winds to northern Europe, killing 2 people and disrupting transport.

In Hamburg, the Elbe River flooded streets around the city’s fish market, with water waist-high in places. Authorities said a storm surge in the port city peaked on Friday morning, reaching 3.3 meters (10.8 feet) above mean high tide.

Infuriated?

December 21, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Damn right.

They should have voted no. It’s just the same old talk the talk, sort of, without walking the walk.

Cease-fire in Gaza: Why Germany abstained in UN votes – Twice now Germany has abstained in a vote in the UN General Assembly that called for a cease-fire in the Middle East. Many countries around the world are infuriated by this.

“We need Germany’s support at the UN,” Israel’s ambassador to Berlin, Ron Prosor, said afterwards. It wasn’t enough, he declared, to abstain “because people are incapable of saying explicitly that Hamas is responsible for this brutal massacre.”

Corruption?

December 20, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

In Germany? At the highest levels of government?

Yawn. Been there, done that. On a near daily basis even. Just look at the Banana Republic of Amerika if you need a role model.

German banker’s diaries add to Olaf Scholz’s political woes – Chancellor is facing questions over his term as Hamburg mayor, when city wrote off bank’s tax bill.

“It is pretty clear that a wealthy banker successfully influenced public decision making in his favour,” said Gerhard Schick, a former Green MP and head of Finanzwende, a financial reform lobby group, adding that policymakers later also tried to derail inquiries into the matter.

“What is at stake here is a very fundamental principle: the rule of law in a democratic society.” Scholz’s vast memory gaps were “implausible”, he added.

Just in the nick of time!

December 19, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Hang in there, Lithuania.

German cavalry is on its way.

German brigade to be combat ready in Lithuania, on Russian border, in 2027.

A permanent German brigade of about 4,800 soldiers in Lithuania, on the Russian border, will be combat-ready in 2027, defence ministers of both NATO members said on Monday after signing an agreement on German troops’ first permanent foreign deployment since World War Two.

Germans award literary prize to an author who compares Gaza to Nazi-era ghettos

December 17, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Ain’t no big deal. Nazi talk has never been doing better in Germany.

The name-calling kind. It’s the latest rage, around the globe even. Join the fun. Everybody’s doing it!

Gessen was originally due to receive the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought on Friday in the city hall of Bremen, in northwest Germany, but the sponsoring organization, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and the Senate of the city of Bremen withdrew from the ceremony.

“Unscrupulous smugglers who brutally put people’s lives at risk?”

December 16, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Do you mean the politicians like you who smuggled this migrant madness into Europe in the first place?

Germany extends checks at Polish, Czech, Swiss borders until mid-March – Measures seek to combat smuggling and limit irregular migration.

“Our fight against the unscrupulous business of smugglers, who brutally put people’s lives at risk, is successful,” Faeser said. Since mid-October, the Federal Police have arrested around 340 smugglers as part of internal border controls, she added. According to her, the number of unauthorized entries nationwide has fallen by more than 60 percent since the temporary border controls were introduced in October, from over 20,000 in October to about 7,300 in November.

I didn’t know you could close a river

December 15, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Especially one that was supposed to have dried up long ago.

Just this summer it was all over with the Rhine, I was told. But hey. The Climate Crises can be like that. One climate crisis is too dry. The next one is two wet. It’s kind of like the weather, you know?

River Rhine in south Germany remains closed to shipping – Parts of the river Rhine in south Germany remained closed to shipping on Friday after heavy rain and melting snow increased water levels, but could reopen later this weekend, navigation authorities said.

We did it!

December 14, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

My back is starting to hurt from all the patting I’ve been giving it.

We’ll just get around that old debt brake six months from now by declaring another “unforseen emergency” for more debt our high court can’t stop us from making. We’ve even announced what that unforeseen emergency will most likely be: Ukraine.

Germany clinches last-minute 2024 budget deal, keeps debt brake – Germany’s government clinched a last-minute deal on its 2024 budget on Wednesday that will see Berlin return to its self-imposed limits on new debt despite warnings this could hamper growth in Europe’s top economy and its green transition.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition was faced with either suspending what is known as the debt brake or finding some 17 billion euros ($18.3 billion) in savings and tax hikes after a Nov. 15 constitutional court ruling threw its plans into disarray…

Others said the deal simply delayed a necessary decision on how to fund investments in an economy that has already suffered years of chronic underinvestment. Last month’s court ruling has made clear the government will not be able to resort as easily to off-budget funds going forwards.

Dabblers

December 8, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

You call that debt?

Sure, you’re burning too much of the taxpayers’ money but if you want to see how it’s really done, take a look at The Banana Republic of US-Amerika.

Hard-pressed Germans dabble in debt but want government thrift – Most Germans do not want their government to loosen its strict borrowing rules to fix a budget mess – but many in a nation that prides itself on thrift are building up their own debts as a cost of living crisis deepens.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition is reeling from a court ruling last month that has thrown its finances into disarray and forced it to suspend a constitutionally enshrined “debt brake” for the 2023 budget.

German of the day: Wärmepumpe

December 6, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means heat pump.

You know, the warming device that needs government subsidies to get anyone to install it (promised subsidies that will now no longer be offered)?

German heat pump rollout at risk as government suspends climate subsidies – Move could also undermine nine funding programmes, covering schemes from energy efficient homes to cargo bikes provision.

Nine funding programmes, covering everything from energy efficient homes to cargo bikes for commercial use, are now on hold as Olaf Scholz’s coalition government seeks to make savings of about €17bn (£15bn).

The government was thrown into a quandary last month over how to finance its ambitious environmental and industrial transformation programme (KTF) when the country’s highest court blocked its attempts to switch €60bn of pandemic-era borrowing to pay for it.