Category Archives: Hard Facts

Meat Me At The Barbeque

August 6, 2013 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

How smart was the Green Party’s election pledge to introduce a weekly vegetarian day? Oh, I dunno. But more than 85 percent of Germans eat meat daily or almost daily. So you do the math.

Meat

Massive web surveillance by the US? German voters seem to have lost interest. The euro crisis? Boring. Comprehensive minimum wage? Zzzzzz. It has been a somnolent election season thus far. At least until this week. Suddenly, the German electorate is up in arms, furious with a proposal made by the Green Party which, many fear, could violate one of their most cherished rights: that of eating sausage whenever they want.

 

Absolutely Shocking Or Something

August 4, 2013 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Who would have thought this possible? The German Bundesnachrichtendienst of all intelligence agencies, run by Germans of all people, in Germany of all places, has been systematically providing that evil National Security Agency of US-Amerika with vast amounts of German telecommunications information (meta records).

NSA

And the BND has been working closely with the NSA like this for over 50 years now, too. I know that there’s a news item here somewhere, I just haven’t figured out where it is yet.

“The BND has been working with the NSA for over 50 years, especially when it comes to the reconnoitering of situations in crisis areas in order to protect German soldiers stationed there and to protect and rescue abducted German citizens.”

“Der BND arbeitet über 50 Jahren mit der NSA zusammen, insbesondere bei der Aufklärung der Lage in Krisengebieten, zum Schutz der dort stationierten deutschen Soldatinnen und Soldaten und zum Schutz und zur Rettung entführter deutscher Staatsangehöriger.”

German Of The Day: Baden Gehen

July 31, 2013 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Yes, baden gehen can mean to go swimming. But it can also mean to go belly-up or to flop horribly.

Baden

And that’s precisely what the German Greens’ top candidate Jürgen Trittin just did while taking part in an election “paddle outing” on the river Werra.

Me? Schadenfroh? Hell yeah. But hey, the federal election here is just 53 days away and you know how it is. Politicians just can’t avoid doing dopey stuff like this at times like this. So give him a break or something. And besides, this guy was all wet to begin with anyway.

The real question here is whether or not this is a portent of things to come. You know, for the Greens? We certainly wouldn’t want them to erleiden (suffer) a Schiffbruch (shipwreck) in the coming election, now would we? Or you wouldn’t, I’m sure.

Trittin, der in Göttingen für den Bundestag kandidiert, war mit Parteifreunden vom nordhessischen Witzenhausen bis ins südniedersächsische Hedemünden auf der Werra gepaddelt, um damit für einen Stopp sämtlicher Salzeinleitungen in den Fluss einzutreten.

Here’s How You Dress For Success

July 30, 2013 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

If you have ever dreamed of being a startlingly effective secret policeman in a paranoid German Communist dystopia, I mean.

Stasi

The Stasi fashion collection was extensive. The agency sent thousands of spies into West Germany and had access to vast amounts of cash to buy western goods to equip agents with.

“For me, the banality of some of these pictures makes them even more repulsive.”

Germany’s Eight Unplugged CO2-Free Atomic Reactors Have Increased Air Pollution For A Second Year In A Row

July 29, 2013 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

No, wait. It’s the German coal-fired power revival doing that.

Green

Green shift? Sounds more like a green shaft to me.

Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel and is blamed by scientists for contributing to global warming. Merkel opted to shut nuclear power plants after an earthquake in Japan two years ago resulted in meltdowns at reactors owned by Tokyo Electric Power Co.

“Climate protection is a key target of the government and greenhouse gases should fall, not climb.”

Nobody Wants To Work In The World’s Most Popular Country

July 28, 2013 By in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Why aren’t there zillions of highly qualified foreigners standing in line to come to live and work in Germany (but not like forever or anything if you don’t want to) as expected when the German blue card was introduced a year ago?

Blue Card

This blue card holder above (the person on the right) is only about one of only about 2500 who have expressed an interest in doing so since the card was introduced – and 70 percent of those 2500 were already living in Germany under a different status at the time of the card’s introduction.

I don’t get it. I thought Germany was so well-loved in the world and all that (there are at least 100 reasons for this I am told). There seems to be some kind of a disconnect here. Why are so many foreigners still insisting to prefer going to such yucky places like US-Amerika instead? Don’t they ever read the papers or anything? Hey, if you’re that uninformed pal, Germany probably doesn’t want you in the first place. So there.

Die meisten Blue-Card-Besitzer kamen aus Indien (1971) – gefolgt von China (775) und Russland (597). Das Bürgerkriegsland Syrien ist mit 389 Akademikern ebenfalls stark vertreten.

NSA Now Building Spy Centers All Over Everywhere Anywhere You Can Think Of In Germany As We Speak

July 19, 2013 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I honestly had no idea that Germans were that interesting to spy on, but German journalists certainly seem to think they are these days.

Wiesbaden

Word is that a new and thoroughly evil spying facility is being built in Wiesbaden which will be a base for US intelligence operatives from the NSA itself.

Too bad those party poopers over at there Germany’s BND are already denying it. Not that that matters.

Nach einem Bericht der Frankfurter Rundschau soll es sich beim neuen Komplex in Wiesbaden um ein Abhörzentrum des US-Geheimdienstes NSA handeln.

Indignant Response Pure Hypocrisy?

July 12, 2013 By in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Here? In Germany?

Merkel

An interview with historian Josef Foschepoth published in the online edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung makes clear that US intelligence agencies have a free hand to do what they like in Germany, with the knowledge and blessing of the federal government.

The historian regards the indignant response of the German government regarding the spying activities of American and British intelligence services unmasked by Edward Snowden as pure hypocrisy. For a Western intelligence agency, such as the National Security Agency (NSA), there are in principle no limits in Germany.

“The NSA can do everything in Germany. Not only because of the legal situation, but above all because of the intensive collaboration between the services, which was always desired and always politically acceptable.”