Category Archives: Hard Facts

German Of The Day: PESCO

November 13, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

That’s actually English and stands for Permanently Stalled Cooperation, I think. It is the EU’s attempt to move closer to having permanent joint European armed forces.

PESCO

But they’ll never manage this, of course. Most European nations don’t even live up to their NATO obligations right now.

Seit vielen Jahren ringen die Europäer um eine gemeinsame Verteidigungspolitik, der Erfolg war bisher äußerst überschaubar. Das aber könnte sich nun ändern: Am Montag haben die Außen- und Verteidigungsminister von 23 der 28 EU-Staaten dem Europäischen Rat mitgeteilt, in der Verteidigung künftig gemeinsame Wege zu gehen. Zumindest vorerst nicht dabei: Dänemark, Irland, Portugal, Malta – und natürlich Großbritannien, das ohnehin die EU verlassen will.

PS: Is she sexually harassing those guys up there?

Bundeswehr Showing More Transparency

November 12, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hype, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Frustrated by the low number of women interested in becoming officers in the German army, the Bundeswehr has decided to once again lead from behind and has begun transitioning some of the few male officers it has (this is the German Army, after all) into the female kind.

Trans

Thought to be a transgression up until very recently, these officers, mostly active as translators or in the transportation division, will be transferred after transformation to the transnational and transcultural Transall troops currently stationed in Transylvania where they will study, among other things, transcendental meditation (this is the German army, after all).

Or so the transcript I’ve read. It was a transliteration, however. End of transmission already.

„Wir haben hier einen Frauenanteil von nur fünf Prozent.“

PS: The female officer in the picture is the big guy on the left.

Let’s Do The Math

November 10, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Yeah, that makes sense. When Britain does it’s Brexit thing and leaves the EU the money they’ve been pumping into it all these years will stop coming in.

Brexit

That means the remaining countries – like Germany – will have to make up for this. OK. Are you still with me here? Good. Now can you tell me why this is supposed to be a news item? You should have worried about this before you failed to compromise with them and let them get away in the first place.

Of the expected 10.2 billion euros that will be permanently missing in the EU budget after the Brexit, Germany will most likely have to come up with an additional 3.8 billion annually if the general conditions remain the same.

Von den voraussichtlich netto 10,2 Milliarden Euro, die im EU-Haushalt nach dem Brexit dauerhaft fehlen würden, müsste Deutschland bei unveränderten Rahmenbedingungen rund 3,8 Milliarden Euro übernehmen.

With Nurses Like This You Don’t Need Doctors

November 9, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , 3 Comments

A German nurse serving a prison sentence for murdering two patients is suspected of killing a total of 102 people, more than previously known, police and public prosecutors said on Thursday. That would make him Germany’s deadliest serial killer if he was found guilty. The man, identified only as Niels H. under reporting rules, has admitted to deliberately injecting patients at two clinics in northern Germany with deadly drugs and then trying to revive them in order to play the hero.

Nurse

Ten years ago, a German nurse was convicted of killing 28 elderly patients. He said he gave them lethal injections because he felt sorry for them. He was sentenced to life in prison.

In Britain, Dr. Harold Shipman was believed to have killed as many as 250 people, most of them elderly and middle-aged women who were his patients. Known as Dr. Death, Shipman was sentenced to 15 life terms in 2000; he died prison in 2004, apparently a suicide.

Where The Happiest Germans Are?

November 8, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Like duh. That’s easy. Wherever the most miserable Germans are. They call it Schadenfreude, folks. With a capital S.

Happiness

Stay out of those orange-looking areas, by the way. You know, places where people like me live? They will NOT be happy to see you.

While in many parts of the world happiness is a purely abstract concept, Germans have come up with a method to measure it. The results from the 2017 yearly survey on life satisfaction, called the “Glücksatlas” (or the “Atlas of Happiness”), have been published on Tuesday…

The gap between the happiest and the unhappiest regions is smaller than ever, with 0.6 points: The people in Schleswig-Holstein top the ranking, with 7.43 points, while Saxony-Anhalt’s population comes last in the listing, with 6.83 points.

Die subjektive Lebenszufriedenheit bleibe auf dem Niveau des Vorjahres und liege auf einer Skala von 0 bis 10 bei 7,07.

German Of The Day: Weltspitze

November 7, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means world-class. And that’s what Berlin is. Or at the very least European-class. When it comes to crappy airports.

Airport

Just like at a survey taken a little earlier this year, of the top ten most horrible airports in all of ze Europe, Berlin Tegel and Berlin Schönefeld got on the short list again, although they only managed ranking ninth and tenth this time. Of course if they counted crappy non-existent airports, Berlin BER would have squeezed in there, too. Or do you think they might have a special consolation prize for that category?

Ein Nutzer schreibt sogar, der Flughafen Berlin Schönfeld sei “der schlechteste Flughafen überhaupt”. Alles sei sehr beengt und zu klein für die vielen Reisenden. „Die Wände, die Fenster und der ganze unsaubere Flughafen erwecken den Eindruck, dass man in einem Gefängnis ist, aus dem man fliehen will“.

This Is A Horror Scenario For The Future?

November 5, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

It’s already happening now, folks.

EU

“EU enlargement has been largely abandoned, other states have left the community, Europe has lost its global competitiveness… The increasingly disorderly, sometimes chaotic and conflict-prone world has dramatically changed the security environment of Germany and Europe.”

A possible vision for the year 2040? Nope, nobody has to wait that long for this.

In einem der sechs Szenarien (“Die EU im Zerfall und Deutschland im reaktiven Modus”) gehen die Autoren von einer “multiplen Konfrontation” aus. Die Zukunftsprojektion beschreibt eine Welt, in der die internationale Ordnung nach “Dekaden der Instabilität” erodiert, die Wertesysteme weltweit auseinanderdriften und die Globalisierung gestoppt ist.

The Case Of The Missing 30,000 Asylum Seekers

November 2, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Not only can German citizens now sleep better at night knowing that their borders are secure (now that Austria and other countries are protecting them for them) they can also rest assured knowing that the responsible authorities who are processing the 1.6 million people currently seeking protection in Germany have everything under perfect control.

Asylum

Or practically everything. Sure, there’s that little thing that just came out about them having lost track of 30,000 rejected asylum seekers, these folks apparently having just disappeared into thin air, nobody has the slightest ideaa where they are and all that but, hey, nobody wants to introduce a police state here in Germany and when you’re talking about 1.6 million, 30,000 are just a hand full of peanuts, right?

“No wonder many people are worried and unsettled. They ask: ‘can the state protect me?’ Politicians must take this insecurity seriously.”

US-Amerika To Penetrate Germany Again Tonight

October 31, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

“They see it as just one more example of American commercial penetration*.”

Halloween

Popular as it is, many people are vehemently against Halloween in their countries, whether it be religious objections or fears of cultural imperialism.

It may be a bit of both in Germany, where 48 percent of respondents in the 2017 YouGov survey said the spooky holiday is a U.S. import that displaces German culture. October 31 is Reformation Day in Germany, and commemorates the day when Martin Luther launched Europe’s Protestant Reformation.

So on that happy note, Happy Halloween everyone! Whatever holiday you might be celebrating tonight.

Fast 50 Prozent der Deutschen glauben, Halloween sei ein US-Import, der die deutsche Kultur gefährde. Fakt ist, dass der Brauch ursprünglich aus Irland stammt.

*Psst. Don’t spoil everybody’s fun by explaining that Halloween originated in Ireland.

Homeless Go Home!

October 30, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Homeless go home? So you can be, I dunno, homeless there instead?

Homeless

There were roughly 2,000 homeless in Berlin twenty years ago. Ever since the Eastern European countries have allowed freedom to travel it plain to see that more and more people live in the city’s streets and parks. The railway station mission and Caritas organization estimate that up to 10,000 homeless are stranded in Berlin today.

Half of the rough sleepers in the German capital are Polish nationals, German news outlet Deutsche Welle has reported.

City authorities and charity organisations in Berlin expect Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries to pull their weight in helping their homeless compatriots by providing financial help and social workers, said Ortrud Wohlwend, from the Berlin-based Stadtmission organisation.

Foreign rough sleepers in Germany are not entitled to any help from the state. They do have the right to medical care as EU citizens, however, and may apply for unemployment benefit after five years of living in the country.

Vor zwanzig Jahren, heißt es, hätten rund 2000 Obdachlose in der Stadt gelebt. Seit der Reisefreiheit für osteuropäische Staaten ist aber mit bloßem Auge zu erkennen, dass in der Stadt immer mehr Menschen auf Straßen und in Parks leben. Bahnhofsmission und Caritas schätzen, heute seien bis zu zehntausend Obdachlose in Berlin gestrandet.