More German Oddity 15

Berlin: WWII Bomb Find Leads to Evacuation of Thousands, Including the Mayor – In Berlin’s ‘Mitte’ district, a large WWII bomb was found on a construction site on Tuesday. Police started evacuating thousands of people in the evening. They included Berliners and visitors.

Berlin

Berlin’s Governing Mayor Michael Müller, the Senate and their staff were evacuated from Red City Hall on Tuesday, due to a World War II bomb find. The latter weighs 250 kilos (550 pounds). A bomb disposal unit was supposed to diffuse the bomb this evening, but the evacuation took time.

German Oddity 15. Germany is a place where huge underground bombs are routinely unearthed all around the country and this barely even makes second page news. In fact, most Germans directly affected are more annoyed about it than anything else. They grudgingly leave their homes until the bomb crews have disarmed or detonated the damned things. Over 5,000 bombs are found in Germany every year.

German Word Of The Day: Unwort

That means un-word or taboo word. Which brings us to the German un-word of the year 2019: Klimahysterie.

Hysteria

That means “climate hysteria” (ín German it’s one word).

A “language critical” jury has selected climate hysteria as the taboo word of the year 2019. The rationale behind the decision is that it “slanders the climate protection movement and its efforts.”

Yes, as a matter of fact it does. But this wasn’t a “political critical” decision, it was a “language critical” one, right? The Brain Police are everywhere, people. Everywhere, I tell you…

Eine sprachkritische Jury hat “Klimahysterie” zum Unwort des Jahres 2019 gekürt, Ausdruck würden “Klimaschutzbemühungen und die Klimaschutzbewegung diffamiert und Debatten diskreditiert”, hieß es zur Begründung.

German Of The Day: Peinlich

That means embarrassing.

The “real Greta”

Greta 2

is so busy saving Planet Earth on a global level that a „Deutsche Greta“ (German Greta) had to be cloned in Germany

Greta

to save Planet Germany at a German level. Siemens is destroying Australia or something.

Cimate changed – German Greta Forces Siemens to Look at Coal Contracts.

This, I find, is peinlich. And completely wackedelic. But maybe that’s just me.

“More Complicated Than It Seems”

Really? Or is it not the least bit complicated at all?

Deportation

There are simply no consequences for those who break the law in a country where the rule of law has been undermined by the state itself.

Germany: Number of asylum-seeker deportations fell in 2019 – Despite the rising number of asylum-seekers ordered to leave Germany, deportation figures fell in 2019. But the reasons why are more complicated than it may seem.

“It needs to be clear: if someone’s asylum request is rejected, they must leave the country.”

What, Me Worry?

About refugees? But Angela Merkel, the parties in power, state television and all the other media outlets forced into line politically have assured and reassured you time and time again that the refugee crisis is completely under control, Germany.

Worry

Why is it still the top issue that worries you?

Germans most worried about refugees, climate change – Climate change has made the biggest jump towards the top of a monthly survey of German sentiment. Despite a 16 percentage point drop, asylum policy remained the chief concern for most Germans, according to the poll.

Asylum policy and climate change are the top concerns for Germans, according to the DeutschlandTrend poll published on Thursday. Nearly a third of all respondents said immigration was the most pressing issue for Germany.

Why won’t the Germans simply believe what they’re supposed to believe? Like they didn’t before under two other German regimes?

German Of The Day: Umweltsau

That means environmental pig. And that’s what German kids call grandmothers who aren’t greener than Green.

Umweltsau

It has a touch of Hitlerjugend or Stasi to it, don’t you think? German state TV at its best. It may have been meant as a satire but something went horribly wrong.

German grandmothers protested outside the offices of state broadcaster WDR in Cologne on Saturday after the station posted a satirical video about old people’s environmental carelessness…

The video, which is set to the tune of a well-known children’s song, satirises older generations’ attitude to the environment and climate change, including the provocative refrain “my grandma is an environmental pig…”

In the video, the children also sing that their environmental-pig grandma cooks discount meat every day, drives an SUV and takes frequent cruise trips. The song closes with a sample of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg saying “we will not let you get away with this.”

“Grandma isn’t just an environmental pig but a Nazi pig.”

German Foreign Minister Concerned That The Middle East Could Now Become Destabilized

After the drone attack that killed top terrorist Qasem Soleimani, I mean. Well, we certainly wouldn’t want that.

Heiko

We can all sleep safer at night knowing that seasoned professional diplomats like Heiko Maas are always on the world stage ball ever prepared to lecture the United States about problems their own countries haven’t the slightest clue about dealing with. Or the will to do so if they did. Good intentions make the world go around.

Comments made by the foreign minister demonstrate that in case of Iranian aggression, the federal government will not take sides with America. Germany has no answer to the aggresive Iranian expanansion and wallows in the role of de-escalator.

“In the coming days, we will do all we can to counteract a further escalation of the situation – in the United Nations, the EU and in dialogue with our partners in the region, including in talks with Iran.”

Durch die Aktion“ sei es „nicht einfacher geworden, Spannungen abzubauen. Das habe ich auch @SecPompeo deutlich gesagt“. Es wird den amerikanischen Außenminister schwer beeindruckt haben.

Are All American Celebrities Experts On Nazi Germany?

No wonder they’re all so, I dunno, celebrated or something.

Celebrities

Linda Ronstadt sees ‘great parallels’ between Hitler’s Germany and Trump’s America – In a recent interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the Grammy-award winning singer said she sees “great parallels” between pre-Nazi Germany and now.

“The intelligentsia of Berlin and the literati and all the artists were just busy doing their thing. Hitler rose to power. There were a lot of chances to stop him, and they didn’t speak out… By the time he got established, he put his own people in place and stacked the courts and did what he had to do to consolidate his power…”

Hitler “stacked the courts.” Hilarious. People who say such things out themselves as not knowing the slightest thing about Nazi Germany. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, of course, but they really out to consider keeping their ignorance to themselves.

But Where Does All This CO2 Keep Coming From?

We’ve shut down practically all of our nuclear power plants already.

Plant

Of course, we had to replace them with dirty coal-firing ones but we’ll be shutting those down soon too. Unfortunately, the renewable utopia we ordained those many years ago still isn’t working yet for some odd reason nor does it look like it will anytime soon. But still. At least the energy prices German consumers have to pay keep climbing and climbing to ever ridiculously high and higher levels. Maybe we could start cutting off power in German homes and industries for a few hours every day and get the populace to stop making so much CO2 that way – and spend more time out in “nature.” It would only be for their own good. Then the rest of the world would admire us yet again for the fine example we have set and start emulating us with gratitude (we are the Big Green and Moral Superpower, after all). Then Planet Earth and Planet Germany would be rescued in no time.

Germany shuts down atomic plant as nuclear phase-out enters final stretch – The Philippsburg power station is one of the only plants still operating in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg. Germany has vowed to start decommissioning every nuclear power facility by the end of 2022.

Angela Merkel’s blunder of the decade that’s taboo in Germany (he means before her blunder in 2015).

German Of The Day: Neujahrsansprache

Or German of the year, if your prefer. That means New Year’s speech.

New Year

And it goes like this, more or less: “Changes for the better are possible.” Wow. Thanks for that, Angie but you wouldn’t have made much of a cheerleader.

When I hear somebody say “changes for the better are possible” I keep waiting for the “but” part. And you know what they say about the “but” part.  Everything before “but” is a lie.

„Veränderungen zum Guten sind möglich.”

PS: Happy New Year anyway!