Category Archives: Hard Facts

Expats Pouting?

October 28, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

He may be the World President, but is he still ours?

“There’s a high interest (in voting) among expats in Germany, but I sense those on the Democrat side aren’t as fervent today as they were in 2008. There’s intense disappointment in President Obama’s leadership.”

Meanwhile… An opinion poll by the Emnid polling institute found 87 percent of German nationals would vote for Obama and only 5 percent for Romney if they had the chance to cast ballots.

Enthusiasm for Obama wanes among U.S. voters in Europe

This Just In: Germans Drive Too Fast

October 25, 2012 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

During something they’re now calling a Blitz-Marathon (speed trap marathon), some 4000 German police caught some 30,000 German speeders during a large-scale 24-hour, well, speed trap marathon.

338 of these speed freaks were driving so fast that they are now facing a driving ban.

Germans everywhere are nevertheless empört (indignant) about this sneaky police campaign, however, because… Because, uh… Well, because Germans everywhere drive too fast. That’s just what they do.

Der schnellste Raser sei auf der Autobahn bei Düsseldorf mit 176 statt der erlaubten 60 Stundenkilometer erwischt worden.

The Trend Is Republican?

October 22, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Reported in a German newspaper? Openly? No sinister conspiracy theories? No ifs, ands or buts? I’ve seen it all now.

President Obama is under pressure: Surveys indicate that he is losing one state after another to Romney. He doesn’t have many chances left to turn the trend around.

Romney hat den Trend auf seiner Seite.

Merkozy This Is Not

October 19, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

How about Hollmerk?

The two capitals (Berlin and Paris) always begin from very different positions, whether there is a socialist or conservative administration in Paris.

The concern in Berlin is over what is seen as the absence of a clear strategy on eurozone reform from the new French government. There is a deep suspicion that France is happy to have a weaker euro, higher inflation, and a looser monetary policy than Germany.

Mr Hollande’s refusal to incorporate the recent “fiscal compact” into the French constitution is one reason that Germany is now pushing for every country to sign a bilateral budget “contract” with the European Commission, that can be enforced by a powerful budget commissar… But Paris regards Ms Merkel as being overly focused on building deeper European political integration in a way that ignores deep-seated reticence in France reflected in the 2005 referendum defeat of the then-planned EU constitution. 

Draw This

October 17, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

How can you (Germany) have a 4-0 lead in the 60th minute (in Berlin) and then end up with a 4-4 draw against Sweden at the end of the match (a World Cup qualifier)?

Beats the hell out of me. But nobody else here seems to know what happened, either. I guess this was just one of those thrill-of-victory-and-agony-of-defeat moments or something. Only it was a tie. Which makes it, I dunno, worse?

Looking on, their manager, Joachim Löw, was in a “state of shock,” unable to comprehend how his players had managed to throw away a 4-0 lead on home soil to a Sweden side that days earlier had scrambled to victory over Faroe Islands. Germany had drawn but it felt like a defeat.

Big Sister Assures Germans That 47-Percent Price Hike Actually Not Such A Bad Thing If You Think About It

October 15, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Humor, Hustle (Hoax), Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Not.

Worried about grassroots unrest after Germany’s electrical grid operators announced they were nearly doubling the charge consumers will pay to finance subsidies for renewable energy as Germany phases out nuclear power, Big Sister herself has reacted boldly and decisively by going into hiding and pretending as if none of this were really happening.

Long used to this tactic, worried German consumers were assured, sort of, as they will now be paying an additional 60 euros per year, “taking overall add-on power taxes up to about 185 euros.” But that’s just the start, of course.

Sheesh. Why do Germans see everthing energy turnaround-related so negatively these days? You know, like as in black? Or like as in blackouts, I should say?

“The costs for consumers and industry of the electricity price charge for renewable energy has risen to an unbearable degree.”

Phase-Out Fizzling Out

October 14, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Home Cooking, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Support for Germany’s Atomausstieg (nuclear phase-out) ain’t what it used to be, it seems. And it seems to have something to do with Geld (money), or something. With reality, in other words.

According to an Emnid survey, 77 percent of German voters asked say it is very important that energy costs remain affordable while only 53 percent care if the nuclear phase-out succeeds or not.

Welcome back to the real world, volks, I mean folks. Hey, you are here in Germany after all. And there is a clearly discernable pattern here. Once the first wave of hysteria is over, it always goes back to es darf eben nichts kosten (OK, but only as long as it doesn’t cost anything).

Für sie ermittelte Emnid auch, dass zwei Drittel der Bürger maximal 50 Euro pro Jahr mehr für Strom zahlen wollen.

Back Then When The World Was Still In Order

October 5, 2012 By in Hard Facts, High Art, Higher Education, History, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

This is just what we need these days: Uplifting communist photography. More specifically, a nostalgic retrospective of art photography produced in communist East Germany.

They just don’t make German democratic republics like they used to.

Electric Cars Have Already Reached A Whopping 0.01 Percent Of All Registered Cars In Germany

October 4, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That’s some, uh, 4,600 vehicles. At this rate, the German government’s plan to have 1 million electric cars on the road by 2020 will be reached easily.

Or maybe not. Because those pesky German consumers still haven’t got the message and think that these babies are too expensive and don’t have a long enough range to make them attractive as, you know, as cars.

So that’s why the German government, flexible as it is, has now said that their goal of 1 million electric cars by 2020 (set last year) has now become a goal of 600,000 electric cars by 2020. I can’t wait to see what next year’s goal for 2020 will be like.

Damn. I’m impressed. This German Energiewende (energy turnaround) is getting easier and easier to reach all the time.

“If we don’t create incentives, then the whole thing is going to fail,” the Green party said in a statement.