Our Wind Farms Would Work Just Great

November 17, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: Alternative Energy, Atomic energy, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Nuclear energy, Satire, The Greens, Wind Energy, Wind Farms Leave a comment

It’s just that we don’t have the cables to bring the energy to shore (nor the money to lay them).

The network operator building those giant offshore wind farms planned to be a “supporting column” in Germany’s coming-one-day-but-not-in-any-way-near-there-yet energy turnaround, is no longer able to continue “work as usual.”

Like the Dutch government before them, having learned that offshore wind power is too expensive and that it cannot afford to subsidize the entire cost, the good folks at TenneT TSO GmbH are now about to throw in the towel, seemingly unable to find financing in the private sector that would allow them to continue their over cost and behind schedule project (it’s probably them damned durn banks doing this again, or that 1%).

The connection from Water World (Wind World?) back to Planet Earth has turned out to be more complicated and expensive than politically correct planners had originally thought, in other words, provided they had even thought about it at all.

But don’t worry, Green Shirt ideologues have already assured us that “If Tennent can’t swing the offshore development, somebody else can.” Money seems to be no object here, you see. When it’s not yours, I mean.

“Wenn Tennet den Offshore-Ausbau nicht schultern kann, müssen andere ran.”

Speaking Of Government In Action

November 15, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Home Cooking Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Government Waste, Humor, Satire, Taxation, Taxes, Waste Leave a comment

Or was it government inaction?

Here’s my personal favorite when it comes to the best (as in worst) cases of German tax revenue negligence for 2011 (so far):

The Bundeswehr stores 227 million rifle cartridges having a combined worth of 116 million euros. At least 40 percent of these cartridges have been stored improperly, however, they are now corroded and can no longer be used and will cost the German taxpayer approximately 46 million euros.

Actually, though, if you think about it, it’s surprising that the Bundeswehr doesn’t have to throw away more corroded ammunition than they already do.

Der Schaden beläuft sich auf 1,5 Milliarden Euro.

Dumbass Computer Gamers

November 14, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Computer Games, Gaming, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Intelligence, Research, Satire Leave a comment

As everybody out there knows… All this computer game nonsense (not to mention the violence) is dumbing down our kids and ravaging our European cultural identity (or at least yours).

“Scientists at the Berliner Berliner Charité medical school have made a surprising discovery: Moderate computer game players have a great deal more brain volume.”

Von wegen, Computerspiele machen dumm – Untersuchungen mit Magnetresonanztomografen ergaben, dass die Hirnstruktur von moderaten Computer-Spielern ausgeprägert ist.

Like Get Out Of My Gesicht Already

November 11, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Biometrics, Facebook, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Paranoia, Satire, Technology 5 Comments

Are we having another Street View yet? German faces on Facebook? Niemals (never)!

When it comes to Facebook’s biometric facial recognition technology “Tag Suggestions”, or just about any other kind of dad-gern-new-fangled sinister and EVIL US-Amerikanische Internet technology out there for that matter, Germans verstehen kein spaß (just can’t take a joke). And when you mix up a little “out of principle” in the fixins’, this latest tasty data protection Skandal is ready-to-serve.

To opt-in or opt-out, that is the question (German paranoiacs prefer the opt-in opt) and Hamburg’s data protection commissioner is now preparing legal action against Facebook and will soon fine the company over its use of said technology because, well, he can.

“Facebook has repeatedly come under fire in Germany, where privacy is a particularly sensitive issue for historical reasons.” Historical reasons? Nonsense. This is clearly a mental health issue.

“We believe that any legal action is completely unnecessary as the tag suggest feature on Facebook is fully compliant with EU data protection laws.”

Pro-Iranian Business Conference Great Success In Berlin

November 10, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hypocrisy Tags: Atomic weapons, Berlin, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Imports, Iran, Nuclear weapons, Sanctions, Satire, Women Leave a comment

Although having been in a bit of a slump recently for some inexplicable reason, business opportunities appear to be picking up once again with Iran for mid-sized German firms.

Something called the “Iranian Business Women Power Economic Congress,” specifically designed to violate the sanctions put in place against the Iranian regime (established by Germany, the European Union, the United States and the United Nations), is successfully promoting trade with the Islamic Republic while simultaneously honoring Iranian women’s rights or something, although some of the women attending haven’t dressed according to forced Islamic dress codes (well they’re forced in Iran) “but we will address that later,” one miffed bearded organizer noted.

“And no, we are not allowing Iranian women to be used as a pretext here in Germany to defy the so-called sanctions you speak of,” another organizer added. “How could we? We like women. The humiliation, silencing, repression and stoning of them that takes place back home is grossly exaggerated in the West. And for the record, once again: We’re not developing any nuclear detonators, warheads or weapons of any kind either, just in case you were wondering.”

“Wir sind wie Wasser – wir finden immer einen Weg”

Die Deutsche Seele

November 6, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, History, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, History, Humor, Psychology, Satire, The German Soul Leave a comment

A little German never hurt anybody. I’m too lazy to translate this, in other words (Thea Dorn’s interesting observations about “The German Soul” this week in Die Zeit):

Wir Deutschen selbst sind die einzigen, die notorisch nicht wahrhaben wollen, wie viele unserer Ängste samt der daraus resultierenden Verhaltensweisen von einer typisch deutschen Mentalität zeugen: Jedem Briten ist klar, dass es sich beim “Waldsterben”, das die Gemüter in den achziger Jahren erschütterte, um einen urdeutschen Spleen gehandelt hat. Kein Franzose versteht, mit welch plötzlicher Radikalität unser Land den Ausstieg aus der Atomkraft vollziehen will. Die Amerikaner waren perplex, als Deutschland unlängst sein Ja zum militärischen Libyen-Einsatz verweigerte. Wir selbst und die Welt würden uns besser verstehen, wüssten wir noch, dass ein deutsches Universal-Lexikon bereits im Jahre 1747 wortreich den “jetzigen Verfall der Wälder in Deutschland” beklagte und Martin Luther mit dessen noch älterer Befürchtung zitierte, dass es Deutschland “vor dem jüngsten Tage” an “wildem Holze” mangeln werde. Dass die im Vergleich zu anderen Völkern überstark empfundene Angst vor einer atomaren Verseuchung aufs Engste mit der deutschen Reinheitssehnsucht zusammenhängt, der schon immer jede Verunreinigung, die sich nicht mit Schrubber und Seife bekämpfen lässt, ein Albtraum war. Dass der vermeintlich neue deutsche Pazifismus seinen größten lyrischen Ausdruck bereits 1779 fand, als Matthias Claudius dichtete: “‘s ist Krieg! ‘s ist Krieg! O Gottes Engel wehre, / Und rede Du darein! / ‘s ist leider Krieg! – und ich begehre / Nicht schuld daran zu sein!” Nur weil wir all dies vergessen haben, können wir heute unsere uralten Ängste als Fortschrittssignale ausgeben.

Germany Will Lead!

November 4, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, EU, Euro, Euro Crisis, Financial crisis, German, Germans, Germany, Greece, History, Humor, Psychology, Satire Leave a comment

But only from behind. It’s another one of those German schizoid personality disorder things.

When history dictates humility, and modesty proves so profitable, reticence endures.

Germans tell the pollsters they fear for their money—and then add that they like both Europe and the euro. They sense that it is cheaper to throw up firewalls than to pay for the devastation of the blaze. They bridle at rewarding the vices of the “Club Med” countries. But their real horror is to be left alone in Europe once more.

American Dream Dying In German Publication For 4387th Time

October 30, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: 99 Percent, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Protest, Satire, The 99 Percent, The American Dream, The Financial Crisis 4 Comments

This just in from Hamburg: The US has entered a second Gilded Age, but one in which hedge fund managers have replaced oil barons — and it is killing the American Dream.

And not even the 99 percent (nor Triumph, their Insult Comic Dog) can do anything about it.

Here are a few of the article’s more fascinating, never-yet-revealed-before mysteries behind America’s unsolved perpetual decline and fall:

“We are the 99 percent” is a development that has shaken the world’s most powerful nation to its core (and here I thought it had been the subway line underneath our street).

Inequality in America is greater than it has been in almost a century (wow, I had no idea that inequality was that much worse now than it had been back in 1911, had you?).

Wealth disparity is greater in the US than in Tunisia or Egypt (but our disparity has a much longer democratic tradition or something).

The major economic expansion under President Ronald Reagan benefited only a few, and the problem only grew worse under George W. Bush (but those Clinton and Obama years really rocked though/still rock, don’t they?).

Although the productivity of the US economy has increased considerably since the beginning of the millennium (despite everything having grown worse under George W. Bush?) , most Americans haven’t benefited from it.

The United States has developed into a winner-take-all economy (can they take all our debts with them while they’re at it?).

The extreme deregulation of today’s financial and economic system makes it impossible for individuals’ self-serving behavior to ultimately contribute to the prosperity of society as a whole (that Adam Smith was like such a dolt).

Differences between rich and poor are tolerated as long as the rags-to-riches story of the dishwasher-turned-millionaire remains theoretically possible (so if it stays practically possible toleration time is over or what?).

“In the first Gilded Age, the streets were flooded with protest movements.” Manhattan hasn’t yet quite reached that point.

Has America become an oligarchy!?!

We Hate Being The Hegemon

October 28, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Debt Crisis, EU, Euro, Europe, Financial crisis, German, Germans, Germany, Hegemony, Humor, Satire Leave a comment

But somebody has to do it.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Germany knew how important it was in Europe but kept its mouth shut about it (while pulling the strings behind France’s back). Those days of semi-credible falsche Bescheidenheit (false modesty) are over, sort of. Now they continue to refuse to lead openly, but still pull the strings. Only France isn’t standing there anymore.

As shown once again during yesterday’s latest “rescue” of Europe, Germany makes the decisions while France still holds the press conferences, but the absurdity of this show is starting to lose a lot of its regular viewers. This formula has jumped the shark, in other words.

But as long as major contradictions keep on coming, everybody here in Germany is happy. You remember, don’t you? Germany fled into the EU to protect itself from itself (there was something about World War II a few years ago). Now it dominates Europe through its sheer economic power anyway, but still psychologically/socially/institutionally traumatized (and loving it), refuses to openly take the role history has assigned it. It prefers instead to publically turn its back on Europe (nobody on the street in Germany truly undestands or much cares about Europe) and concentrate instead on more important things at home like solar energy, local elections and not hurting coalition partners’ feelings.

In other words, Germany may clearly call all the shots now, but it still refuses to lead. Which is kind of clever, if you think about it. When everything ends up going tango uniform later, it wasn’t Germany’s fault.

Mit politischer Macht verhält es sich wie mit Millionen von Euro auf dem Konto: Man spricht nicht darüber.

A Leaner Non-Fighting Force

October 27, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, High Art, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Bundeswehr, Defense Industry, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Military, Satire, Weapons industry 2 Comments

Germany has announced 31 military base closures and the significant scaling back of 90 others as part of a major overhaul of the country’s armed forces which everybody here knows will never be used in any real combat situations anyway.

“Cuts or not, the German military must remain able to not deploy in an entire range of situations,” one high-ranking, unnamed Bundeswehr official said.

“This includes in particular missions in dangerous armed conflicts as well as high-intensity combat missions our government will regularly forbid us to participate in.”

When asked if these cuts might have a negative effect upon German defense industry firms involved in the extremely lucrative production of systems like the Eurofighter combat jet, the A400M military transport plane and the Leopard 2 and Puma tanks, to name just a very few, the official reassured all who cared to listen that the German military will do all in its power to seek other options to extend the orders for such weapons and will most certainly continue to order more of the same in the future.

“Our function as alibi army for the German defense and weapons export industry will continue to be our number one priority,” the official said, clicking his heels loudly or something.

The elimination of the draft will require making a career in the military more attractive in a country where part of the population is skeptical of military interventions. Germany didn’t support the international campaign in Libya.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Habitudes