Finally, A German Non-Word Of The Year For The Rest Of Us

January 12, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Language, Non-Words, Unwort des Jahres, Word Of The Year, Words 1 Comment

Please, someone please have this 2015 winner introduced into the English language ASAP, please (did I say please?): Gutmensch.

A Gutmensch is a do-gooder or a starry-eyed idealist. Or the term can also be seen as a blanket reproach for being “naive, dumb and worldly innocent, or being someone suffering from helper syndrome or moral imperialism.”

Or if you want a more concrete example of what this kind of non-word ailment can lead to, take a look at what’s going in in Germany right now. That’s right. The Gutmenschen are behind all of this.

Wer Gutmensch sagt, verdient sich seinen Shitstorm.

The Recklinghausen Connection

January 10, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Asylum Seekers, Films, German, Germans, Germany, ISIS, Language, Movies, Paris, Refugees, Terror, Terrorism, The French Connection 1 Comment

No, not staring Gene Hackman. This thriller stars an asylum-seeker French police killed as he tried to storm a Paris police station last week.

This guy was registered at a German asylum center in the city of Recklinghausen, had a phone with a German SIM card and carried a paper on him in which he pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State. He had also been registered under four different names in Germany.

I don’t think that’s fair. That a poor refugee gets welcomed to Germany four times like that, I mean. Then there are fewer welcomes left to go around for the next wave of folks that comes in. And the next, and the next…

Der Mann posierte in seiner nordrhein-westfälischen Flüchtlingsunterkunft mit einer IS-Fahne. Die Landesbehörden stuften ihn demnach als Verdachtsfall ein, doch im Dezember 2015 verschwand er spurlos aus Recklinghausen.

PS: There’s this German turn of speech I really like: Ich glaub ich bin im schlechten Film. That means I think I’m in a bad movie. I’ve been hearing it more and more these days, too, for some reason.

German Of The Day: Kultureller Austausch

January 7, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Cologne, Crime, Gangs, New Year's Eve, Police, Refugees, Reports, Sexual Assault 2 Comments

That means cultural exchange. You know, like the one that took place in Cologne on New Year’s Eve (not to mention in Hamburg, Stuttgart, Bielefeld, etc.)?

Here are a few examples of the mindset of some of the young men who participated in the festivities that night (in a report filed by the Cologne police):

After being confronted by the cops, one guy said “I’m a Syrian. You have to be friendly to me! Frau Merkel invited me.”

Another guy, after ripping up his residence permit in front of another cop, said “You can’t do anything about it. I’ll just get a new one tomorrow.”

Police trying to help some of the victims were held back by some of these men, others refused to leave the area after the police ordered them to do so, witnesses were threatened if they dared to identify any of them doing the harassment… You know, stuff like that. Nothing for anybody to get all hot and bothered about.

Der Verfasser des Berichts zieht ein düsteres Fazit: Den Maßnahmen der Beamten sei mit einer Respektlosigkeit gegegnet worden, “wie ich sie in 29 Dienstjahren noch nicht erlebt habe.”

If The Lawsuit Fits, Wear it

January 6, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Dieselgate, Emissions, German, Germans, Germany, Lawsuits, VW 2 Comments

I’ve got your unresolved emissions issues for you right here, pal.

But what’s $48 billion to Volkswagen? Wait a minute. Actually, wow. That’s quite a bit.

Remember when Germans used to be greener than green?

Although such U.S. lawsuits are typically settled at a fraction of the theoretical maximum penalty, analysts said the size of the claim meant Volkswagen (VW) could face a larger bill than previously anticipated.

If It Looks Like Dog !%#, And Smells Like Dog !%#, Then…

January 5, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Cologne, Crime, German, Germans, Germany, Hamburg, New Year's Eve, Refugees, Robbery, Sexual Assault 3 Comments

It’s still not allowed to be called dog !%#*.

Move along folks, move along. Nothing to see here. And this has absolutely positively nothing at all to do with Germany’s WAY out of control open-arms refugee policy. So don’t even bring that up.

German officials sought to reassure the public on Tuesday after scores of women reported being sexually assaulted and robbed by what witnesses described as large groups of Middle Eastern-looking men during the New Year celebrations.

While security officials said it was unclear whether the perpetrators were recently arrived migrants, the assault reports are feeding into a simmering debate about the impact of the more-than 1 million refugees who arrived in the country last year, mainly from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa.

German Of The Day: Wutbürger

January 3, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: AfD, Elections, Europe, German, Germans, Germany, Immigration, Language, Merkel, Migrants, Political Parties, Refugees Leave a comment

That means outraged citizens. And although they’ve always been around (Germans are always empört/outraged about something), Angela Merkel’s ongoing open-arms refugee policy seems to be generating more and more of them all the time.

And whoopee! 2016 just happens to be a big regional election year. Unless things start to change real fast (ha, ha, ha), I wonder who’s going to be getting all these votes? Not.

Originally founded as a eurosceptic movement a few years ago, the party Alternative for Germany (AfD) came close to its demise – until it split in two. Now, it has experienced a surge in public opinion. Euroscepticism is barely mentioned any more; the new party is acting as an anti-refugee party. If elections were to take place today, the AfD would probably enter parliament with a double-digit election result.

Evil US-Amerikan-NSA-CIA-Creeps Still Invading German Privacy (Along With Their French Counterparts)

January 1, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hi-tech Tags: Bombings, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, ISIS, Munich, Terror, Terrorists Leave a comment

And kept the new year from starting off with a bang in Munich.

“According to information obtained by the ZEIT the warning was also based upon information that came out of the USA. The French authorities were then of the opinion that these warnings fit the information they themselves had gathered.”

Nach Informationen der ZEIT beruht die Warnung auch auf Informationen, die aus den USA kamen. Die französischen Behörden seien demnach der Ansicht gewesen, dass diese Warnungen zu Informationen passten, von denen sie selbst gehört hätten.

No “High Abstract Threat” Here

December 31, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Home Cooking Tags: Berlin, Brandenburg Gate, Firworks, New Year's Eve 1 Comment

These puppies will blow your fingers clean off.

You folks have a Happy New Year anyway!

In der Hauptstadt werden mehrere Hunderttausend Menschen auf einer rund zwei Kilometer langen Feiermeile zwischen Brandenburger Tor und Siegessäule erwartet. Hinweise auf konkrete Anschlagsplanungen in Berlin gebe es nicht, betonte ein Polizeisprecher. Es herrsche aber eine hohe abstrakte Gefährdung.

Lyrics Aren’t Everything

December 30, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Anthems, German, Germans, Germany, Hymns, Language, Lyrics, Migrants, Muslims, PEGIDA, Refugees, Song Leave a comment

Especially when you don’t have any.

A wordless song released by the anti-Islam group PEGIDA has knocked Adele off the top off the top of Amazon’s German downloads chart.

The song, Gemeinsam sind wir stark! or Together We Are Strong!, is being sold to raise funds for the protest movement, short for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident.

“Unfortunately, the product does not work,” Party-Idiot Patriot wrote. “I have repeatedly listened to the song with friends, but we are neither stronger nor more German.”

Edumacated Germans To Smart Four So-So Media

December 22, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hysteria Tags: Education, Facebook, German, Germans, Germany, OECD, Social Media, Society, Studies, Twitter Leave a comment

You know, like Tweeter and all that stuff?

Uh oh. Just look at that chart. Yet another German Alleingang (solo action), or what?

Statistics show that unlike other industrial nations, more highly-educated Germans avoid social networks than people with little or no education.

“This mixture of protectionism and distaste for communication organized through the market economy makes the educated classes see the power of social media more as a threat than an opportunity.”

Mehr Bildung = weniger Social Media. Jedenfalls in Deutschland

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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