It’s here (the German “summer hole“). So get used to it. And remember: If it wasn’t for slow news (see yesterday’s post), we wouldn’t have no news at all.
Or as one paper here put it: “Exotic Animals in a Summer Loch Ness.”
Hey, news is a product, folks. And production is down.
In the United States the period is referred to prosaically as the slow news season.
Germans are totally tierlieb (fond of animals). Especially when they are the exotic and preferably dangerous kind of Tier they regularly think they see but never manage to find lurking about in the German Wildnis (wilderness).
This time it’s another crocodile, somewhere near Regensburg (with an emphasis on the crock here, folks). A guy out on a walk and “a lady on an air mattress” both saw the horrible creature so we can be sure that this time the danger is clear and present.
These are obligatory annual sightings, by the way. I don’t know why that it, but you have to have at least one here every summer. It has to do with the infamous German Sommerloch (which is just about to start), I think, but that’s another story.
Die Polizei in Bayern hat mit Schlauchbooten, Tauchern und sogar einem Hubschrauber nach einem Krokodil in einem Badesee gesucht – bisher erfolglos.
You’ve heard of the invisible hand being everywhere in the free market system, right? Well if you’re a left-wing terrorist in Germany you can count on having a protective hand taking care of you, too. When it comes to the German justice system, I mean.
Four years for being an accessory to murder? Deduct the trial time, which they already have, and RAF terrorist Verena Becker will be out on the street in no time (the safe German street, now that the RAF isn’t active there anymore).
What can I say? The German judicial system has ein Herz für linke Terroristen (left-wing terrorists). They are the ones who are always the Opfer (the victims). The system made them that way or something. That’s why this article confirms “that the sentence was relatively light, but that’s a good thing.” Why that’s a good thing is still not clear to me. But I’m not German.
Germany’s Federal Interior Ministry insists that portions of the BfV files on Becker will remain confidential, as will passages in the documents related to when she was pardoned in 1989 by then German President Richard von Weizsäcker. All of this incomprehensible secretiveness has only contributed to fostering more speculation.
Michael Buback, the son of the murdered prosecutor, added some emotional moments to the trial. In a statement before the court, the chemistry professor from Göttingen admitted to feeling “attacked, insulted and disparaged” by federal prosecutors. What’s more, he accused investigators of having held a “protective hand” over Becker.
Now if only it would stay there.
Damn. This is becoming quite a ritual (yawn). But this is just what folks at Berlin Fashion Week do, so deal with it. Thirty-four models, four hundred passengers and seventeen labels on one subway train, what’s that get you? An underground catwalk – for the seventh time now already. Sheesh.
“This year is all about kitschy kitsch.”
An online German government poll has just found out that Germans want legalized dope, a ban on sex with animals, more home births, a ban on genocide denial and more affordable artificial insemination, although not necessarily in that order.
Of course nobody asked how they would feel about the possibility of getting rid of online polls like these one day, but give them some time.
The online poll is part of an ongoing government initiative called “Dialogue on the Future” that aims to get ordinary Germans thinking about how to improve life in Germany.
PS: And in another survey it turns out that 57.6 of German women asked would rather watch “Sex and the City” (TV) than have sex.
North, south. Inferiority, superiority. It’s all the same to me.
Germans export more to their European partners than they consume, benefiting from this asymmetrical situation even as they expect everyone else to be exporters and savers like them.
Germans have been dying off faster than they can replace themselves for over forty years now. It’s just what they do.
And here are last year’s numbers: 2.2 percent fewer German babies were born in 2011 then in the year before. Strangely, though, the number of inhabitants actually grew last year (them damned durn foreign immigrants again).
It’s the demographics, stupid.
Schon seit 40 Jahren sterben in Deutschland mehr Menschen als Kinder geboren werden.
And the Germans didn’t have much swine last night when Italy trounced them in the Euro 2012 semi-finals 2:1.
Having pig (Schwein haben) means to have a stroke of luck, you see. And Emma the pig up there (no relation to Arnold Ziffel) knew it all along, if you can beleive that. Which I don’t.
In the race to emulate Paul the Octopus’ World Cup predicting perfection of two years ago, Emma the Mangalitsa pig from Freiburg, Germany, vaulted into sole possession of the lead on Thursday evening.
Is this the end of “the European way of life” as we know it?
European leaders have been muddling through instead of properly tackling the debt crisis. Now it threatens the very foundations of the European Union and could destroy a lifestyle that millions of Europeans take for granted.
Funny. I thought taking things for granted was what the European lifestyle was all about.
“We need fiscal discipline because we have a debt problem… No euro bonds as long as I live.”
German government debt keeps climbing relentlessly higher and reached an all-time high during the first three months of this year. The federal, state and local governments then reached a debt to the tune of 2 trillion euros.
That was 2.1 percent or 42.3 billion euros higher (deeper?) than in the previous year’s quarter, reported the Federal Office of Statistics in Wiesbaden on Monday.
Now if only Greece and Co. could learn to control their government spending like the Germans do. Oh, wait. They already have. Or do. Or whatever.
Deutschlands Staatsschulden auf Rekordhoch gestiegen
Observing Hermann 