Category Archives: Habitudes

Good Point

February 4, 2014 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

“While there are genuine pacifists in Germany,” as German President Joachim Gauck recently noted at the Munich Security Conference, “there are also people who use Germany’s guilt for its past as a shield for laziness or a desire to disengage from the world.”

Gauck

Very true. But believe you me, if he or anybody else out there seriously thinks for one cotton-pickin’ minute that Germans are suddenly going to seriously consider “a more muscular foreign policy” (use their army for what armies are actually intended to be used for) just because of any good points he or anybody else out there might make, he and that anybody else out there should be tested for doping. Ain’t NEVER gonna happen here.

Es darf nichts kosten (it can’t cost anything).

“Germany is really too big to just comment from the sidelines.” Duh. So? How does that saying go again? Germany is too big for Europe and too small for the world.

PS: Germans are still really good at blowing up stuff, though.

Boom

Germans Not Corrupt

February 3, 2014 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Just kind of sleazy.

Corruption

Corruption across the European Union’s 28 countries costs about 120 billion euros ($162 billion) per year — a “breathtaking” sum equal to the EU’s entire annual budget, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said Monday.

But Germany gets top marks from the commission: “When it comes to fighting corruption, Germany is amongst the best countries of the EU.” But the country could benefit from introducing “strict penalties” on corrupt elected officials and “develop a policy” to limit the ability of government officials to go work for companies they previously were in a position to help.

Saudi A. (Yet Again)

February 3, 2014 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

Saudi A.

Because somebody has to admire them.

Despite it’s often pacifist positions on global security issues, Germany is also in the seemingly contradictory position of being one of the world’s largest arms exporters.

PS: At least none of those creepy postcards are involved here.

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

February 2, 2014 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Ein Frührentner (an early retiree). Please laugh, but please also be assured that I personally know a German teenager who actually answered this question this way and was NOT joking.

Retirees

And this really shouldn’t come as a surprise in a country where, according to the latest poll, 53 percent of the employed don’t plan to work past the age of 63 and barely one third of them expect to work until the “official” reitrement age of 65. Or is it 67 now? Wait, or is it 63 doch (after all)?

At any rate, whatever the official German retirement age may be, rest assured that it will not be the age at which the majority of Germans will be retiring.

Ein knappes Drittel will dagegen bis zum regulären Renteneintrittsalter weiterarbeiten.

SPD Not Sozial Enough

January 31, 2014 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Boy, that didn’t take long. Did you read that part about “social” yesterday?

Sozial

Hardly in the new coalition government with the CDU/CSU, leading SPD politicians are now already preparing the way for their move to form a new “100% social” one with the Left Party.

These things take time, though. And it’s all about psychology. And timing. OK, the SPD has never been all that good with the timing part but they’re numero uno when it comes to subtle psychological manipulation. OK, not so subtle psychological manipulation. And publishing a paper calling for a “progressive left-leaning reform alliance with an aim to take over in 2017” with the Left Party is just the right ticket. For the start, I mean. Did I mention the timing part?

Für ein “progressiv-linkes Reformbündnis mit einer Machtperspektive 2017” müsse man “die bestehenden inhaltlichen und strategischen Differenzen zwischen allen Parteien links der Union” beseitigen.

Where’s The Money?

January 30, 2014 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

All of a sudden. For all of that five-year-plan-renewable-energy-turnaround-ideology-project-like-stuff in Germany, I mean. She is gone, señor.

Gabriel

Or at least more and more German citizens are finally waking up and simply just aren’t prepared to keep on paying ever more for less and less of whatever it was that this so-called energy turnaround of theirs was supposed to be delivering.

That is why Superminister Gabriel (didn’t he used to sing with Supertramp?) is now urging (ordering) German parliamentary lawmakers to start cutting state subsidies for renewable energies – for German industry – because they are rich and capitalistic or something and are therefore evil (he’s an SPD Superminister) and haven’t really been milked properly for this one yet. And the po folks just aren’t willing to keep paying more and more, like I said [By the way, the S in SPD stands for “social” and everything with “social” in it means “free lunch.” Read Margaret Thatcher’s quote down there on the right if you want to learn more.].

Of course why the energy turnaround has to keep on turning around the way it does like this in the first place is the really interesting question here, I find, but certainly not one that anyone here in Germany appears to be willing to ask. At least not quite yet anyway.

Yup, renewable turnaround money has sure gotten tight around here these days. Not even a Swabian housewife can help out anymore.

“We need to break the dynamics of ever-rising electricity bills, while ensuring a stable supply of energy for all.”

German Women Lousy Combat Soldiers But Still Hot

January 26, 2014 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

A survey conducted among German men soldiers in the Bundeswehr has revealed that 34 percent of them do not believe that German women soldiers are up to life in the field. 52 percent say that women cannot physically carry out the demanding duties required of them. A third of the men asked believe that women in these positions have led to a reduction of something they refer to as “combat strength.”

Women

So maybe that’s why fifty-five percent of women in the Bundeswehr have reported some kind of sexual mistreatment on the job, with 47 percent citing verbal abuse, 25 percent saying they had been confronted with pornographic images and 24 percent telling researchers they had experienced “unwanted sexually motivated physical contact.”

But wait a minute here. That line up there about German combat strength just doesn’t fly. The real question here, if you ask me, is what does the Bundeswehr even need combat soldiers for in the first place? The Bundeswehr doesn’t “do” combat as all the world knows that Germans are pacifists and combat is strictly verboten.

Das Leben im Feld? Dem seien die Frauen nicht gewachsen, sagten 34 Prozent (2005: 28 Prozent). Körperlich anspruchsvolle Aufgaben? Die könnten Frauen nicht ausfüllen, sagen inzwischen 52 Prozent (2005: 44 Prozent). Über ein Drittel der Männer beklagt inzwischen durch Frauen den Verlust der Kampfkraft.