Category Archives: Habitudes

We Don’t Trust That There NSA One Little Bit

August 19, 2013 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hate, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

But we’ll, uh, trust them this one time here, maybe.

Trains

Al Qaeda is plotting attacks on Europe’s high-speed rail network, German newspaper Bild reported on Monday, citing a leaked National Security Agency (NSA) report.

The NSA report is based on an intercepted conference call between top Al-Qaeda operatives, in which the terrorist attacks were reportedly a “central topic”.

Berlin has responded to the threat with discreet measures such as deploying plain-clothed police officers at key stations and on main routes, Bild reported.

Der Hinweis stamme vom US-Geheimdienst NSA.

German Of The Day: Bausünde

August 18, 2013 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Bausünden are building sins. Or building blunders? Or architectural abberations? Whatever. Berlin knows how. It’s just what they do here.

Sin

Photographer Turit Fröbe has now published an illustrated book about some of the most awful abberations, which must have been pretty difficult to compile. I mean, there is just too much to chose from here.

I love them all, by the way. The more sinful the better.

“Gute Bausünden zu finden, ist viel schwerer, als man denkt.”

There Are No Jokes

August 16, 2013 By in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Well, actually there are. But in this case I’m not so sure.

Tourists

The satirical political party “Die Partei” gathered Thursday at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to debut its latest campaign demand: eradicating tourists from the German capital.

The protest is a play on a debate in recent years in Berlin on how mass tourism threatens to transform the Brandenburg Gate, an important historical site in the city, into a a cheap Disneyland-like attraction.

Ob Ost, ob West, nieder mit der Touri-Pest!

Strange German News Blackout Going On Right Now Sort Of

August 15, 2013 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

No one here seems particularly interested that a fifty-year-old man shot his wife and daughter in Essen yesterday. His daughter died. His wife might yet. Didn’t anybody ever bother to tell this creep that Germany has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world?

Guns

Nor is anyone all that concerned about the fact that the UPS cargo aircraft that crashed in Alabama yesterday was an Airbus A300 freighter (thanks, Murph). I’m not so sure that would be the case if the aircraft had been manufactured by Boeing.

There are just more imporant things out there to report about these days, I guess.

“It would be inappropriate for Airbus to enter into any form of speculation into the cause of the accident.”

PS: Catastrophic climate change 3,200 years ago? But where did they get all their CO2 from?

Speaking Of Predictability

August 13, 2013 By in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Zum Sommer gehört auch Günter Grass (Günter Grass is also a part of sommer – predictable as he is, just like those other Sommerloch monsters mentioned below).

Grass

This time the grand old man of letters suddenly felt the urgent need to attack former SPD boss (and now over-the-hill ex-Left Party boss) Oskar Lafontaine as being a sleazy traitor to the grand old SPD’s grand old cause, whatever the grand old hell that was.

I can only assume that this little outburst must have something to do with the upcoming federal elections. The SPD has ruled out ever forming a coalition government with the Left Party (one of the very few things they have managed to do right), but this is mostly because the Left Party, like the SPD itself, is already extinct (nobody has broken the part about the SPD being extinct to the SPD yet, however). Grass, of course, is about as SPD and as extinct as you can get.

And it doesn’t really matter that Grass is actually right about Lafontaine here. All it points out to me is just how much he and Lafontaine have in common. Nobody out there takes them seriously anymore.

Günter Grass gehört zum Sommer wie das Reptil zum Badesee.

Right On Time

August 12, 2013 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This is definitely one of my favorite rituals over here. Like the reliable old groundhog back home, at least one weird animal sighting is guaranteed to take place in Germany during the so-called Sommerloch season.

Lotti

This year’s winner is a terrifying alligator snapping turtle that actually attacked a young swimmer in Bavaria somewhere. Or maybe he didn’t. But still.

Like I said, this happens over here every year. Here are just a few examples. Who says that “news” isn’t a product that you can just turn on and off at will? Depending upon the demand, I mean. Which obviously seems to be pretty low at the moment (it’s a Sommerloch, like I said).

And all of these scary monsters have one other thing in common, too: They never get caught. Some böse Zungen (malicious tongues) even suggest that these creatures don’t even really, you know, exist?

The turtle, nicknamed Lotti, is likely to be some 40cm (16 inches) long and weigh at least 14kg (30 pounds).

German Outrage Industry At Full Production

August 7, 2013 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

When it comes to Germany’s BND foreign intelligence service having forwarded massive amounts of data to the NSA – legally, I mean.

Sicherheit

Take the good old SPD, for instance. They’re hollering the loudest at the moment. And this despite the fact that this particularly evil cooperation with US-Amerika is nothing new at all to them. So not new, in fact (an agreement made in the year 2002), that the SPD’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier was the guy wearing the responsibility hat when this agreement was made – the current governing coalition was not even in power.

But hey, you know how it is when a political party is out of power (in more ways than one) and crawling and scratching to get back into the game. In an outrage and all. In a panic, I mean.

“In my view, the opposition has only itself to blame. Pretending to be the firefighter just to be caught as the arsonist – you can’t play both of these roles with any credibility.”

Veggie Day Will Just Be The Start

August 5, 2013 By in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

If the Greens get their way, I mean.

Green

Although most German works canteens (the place where most working Germans take in their main meal of the day) offer one vegetarian day per week voluntarily already, this is clearly not enough for certain of the more nervous elements pacing the floors at Green Shirt Campaign Headquarters. A federal election is coming up people, so it’s time for a little agitprop sommertime theater already (agitprop Sommerloch theater?).

Once in absolute control – uh, I mean after the coming election in September – the Greens apparantly plan to introduce legislation indroducing “Veggie Day” for the good of all of us, animals included, whether we like our veggies or not (most animals hate them). Like how Organic Bourgeois of them is that?

You see, it’s not like the Greens are into Bevormundung or anything (paternalism, condescension, tutelage, bureaucratic PC dictatorship, etc.). It’s just that they’re into Bevormundung.

One guy from the FDP put it well: “What’s next? Jute Shopping Bag Day? Bike Day? Green Shirt Day?”

“Man muss nicht jeden Tag zwei Burger essen.”

Absolutely Shocking Or Something

August 4, 2013 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Who would have thought this possible? The German Bundesnachrichtendienst of all intelligence agencies, run by Germans of all people, in Germany of all places, has been systematically providing that evil National Security Agency of US-Amerika with vast amounts of German telecommunications information (meta records).

NSA

And the BND has been working closely with the NSA like this for over 50 years now, too. I know that there’s a news item here somewhere, I just haven’t figured out where it is yet.

“The BND has been working with the NSA for over 50 years, especially when it comes to the reconnoitering of situations in crisis areas in order to protect German soldiers stationed there and to protect and rescue abducted German citizens.”

“Der BND arbeitet über 50 Jahren mit der NSA zusammen, insbesondere bei der Aufklärung der Lage in Krisengebieten, zum Schutz der dort stationierten deutschen Soldatinnen und Soldaten und zum Schutz und zur Rettung entführter deutscher Staatsangehöriger.”