German Greenness Now A Recognized Disease

February 19, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Alles Grün Und Gut?, Books, Dirk Maxeiner, Ecology, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Michael Miersch 3 Comments

Just like practically everything else around here. It’s called Gefährliche Öko-Hysterie (Dangerous Eco-Hysteria or DEH) and has blossomed out to become one of the top Volkskrankheiten (collective, people’s diseases) in the country, although I couldn’t give you it’s official ranking on the official top-ten disease list because these top-ten diseases change every few minutes anyway.

The problem with German Greenness or DEH is not so much that everyone in Germany has swallowed what the green shirts have been feeding them for decades. Hook, line and sinker, I mean. The problem here arises when the Widersprüche (contradictions) of green shirt ideology begin popping up their ugly little pointed heads. And they do this all the time, if you just look a little closer. Here are just a few such contradictory symptoms that might catch your attention:

“Are energy-saving lamps environmentally friendly if they contain poisonous mercury? Is organic farming truly ecological if twice as much land is needed for the same harvest? Are wind power plants environmentally friendly if they hack thousands of birds and bats to pieces? What effects does biodiesel have on nature if it comes from palm oil and rainforests have to be burned down to cultivate that? Why aren’t German friends of the sun concerned that Chinese solar cell factories pollute the environment and poison people?”

Try as they might, the Germans, green as they may claim to be, nevertheless have no choice but to start thinking about such contradictions from time to time and these contradictions can cause intense innere Spannung (inner tension) and Aufruhr (turmoil). They wonder if maybe the green regime isn’t what it claims to be after all. Some have even begun listening and watching Feindsender (enemy radio stations, TV and Internet sites), although this is strictly forbidden, of course. One or two have even organized Widerstand (resistance groups). Of course I’m just speculating here about the one or two organizing Widerstand but you must admit that it is at least theoretically possible.

Anyways, I want all of you to take two green aspirin and call me in the morning. Better yet, take two green aspirin and go away. Go off to Valhalla or Waldhalla or wherever it is you greens go to when you fade away, which will never be fast enough for me. You dangerously eco-hysterical sickos, you.

Alle sind grün geworden, von Angela Merkel bis Margot Käßmann, von “Bild” bis “Brigitte”, von der Allianz bis zum ADAC. Sogar McDonald’s hat sein Logo von rot auf grün umgefärbt. Gleichzeitig wird immer verschwommener, für was die Etiketten “grün” oder “nachhaltig” überhaupt noch stehen.

German Of The Day: Die Befriedigung Voyeuristischer Bedürfnisse

February 13, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Hurt Feelings Tags: Big Brother, German, Germans, Germany, Heidi Klum, Language, Mars, Mars One, Reality TV, Space Travel, TV Leave a comment

That means the satisfaction of voyeuristic needs. And that is not, this guy here below repeats, NOT what his possible participation in the upcoming reality-show-media-spectacle “Mars One” on RTL is going to be about.

Well not for him, perhaps. He says he just wants to make the world a better place. On Mars (he’s young – and has an SPD party membership book). And of the 200,000 people who have applied to take part in this cosmic kamikaze picnic he has made it all the way up to the last 660 future contestants batch. You know, he’s still being casted like they do on Germany’s Next Topmodel by Heidi Klum? His mom must be really proud.

You see, the planned “Mars One” mission will need lots and lots of dough to properly sponsor, I mean send their crews to their deaths and that’s why the TV rights have already been sold to the Dutch production firm Endemol, the same folks who bring us, I mean you, shows like Big Brother. So I guess we know where this is going – other than to Mars, I mean – but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the satisfaction of voyeuristic needs, to come full circle again already. No, it clearly doesn’t. It’s just about a simple suicide mission to Mars. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hey, I’m all for the exploration of Mars. But a one-way ticket there for human beings in reality show format is, well, as one guy in the article rightly points out, “ethically questionable” to say the least.

Es geht nicht um die Befriedigung voyeuristischer Bedürfnisse.

The Next Thing You Know They’ll Be Selling These On Ebay

February 2, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: Coal, Electricity, Energy, German, Germans, Germany, Power, Power Plants, Renewable energy, Utilities Leave a comment

Germany’s utilities, battered by the country’s shift to wind turbines and solar panels, would be glad to sell you a power plant on the cheap. They’ll even pack it up and ship it to another country.

The two largest power producers, RWE AG and EON SE, are especially keen to sell their gas-fired plants, rendered uncompetitive by the rise of renewable energy on the one hand and record low coal prices on the other. It’s a relatively easy task to take them apart, move them by truck and ship and reassemble them elsewhere.

“There is a liquid global market for gas turbines. Transport costs are entirely marginal.”

The Hare-Raising Power Of Mercedes-Benz

February 1, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Hi-tech, High Art Tags: AMG GT, Commercials, Fairy Tales, Humor, Mercedes Benz, Super Bowl 2015, Super Bowl XLIX 1 Comment

It’s Super Bowl commercial time.

Before the Super Bowl, but still.

Go Seattle!

Reproduction Regulators Recommend Rigorous Reform

February 1, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Child Benefits, Children, Demographics, Families, German, Germans, Germany, Kindergeld, Population, State Control, State Spending, Taxation, Traditions 5 Comments

The logic appears to go like this: Germans will only have children if they are paid by the state to do so.

That this money must first be taken from them by the state to only later be given back to them if they behave properly (improperly?) is the first oddity here but not really the issue at the moment – or at least not the one German politicians want to talk about. The problem now is that Germans aren’t having enough children (only 12% of families with children here have 3 or more). They are not following the German reproduction regulation logic like they are supposed to and are refusing to have large families despite regular increases to the child benefit or Kindergeld payments given here.

In an attempt to counteract what is now the German one-child-per-family-if-they-have-any-children-at-all tradition, some reproduction regulators are suggesting that families now be given higher payments for each successive child born. I’m sure this will work just great. Well, I’m kind of sure it might work maybe, I mean.

Of course more money will first have to be taken in from the Germans before some of it can be given back to some of them again but that’s never bothered legislators here before so why break with a tradition like that now?

“Die wirtschaftliche Situation von Familien verbessert sich trotz der staatlichen Unterstützung im Durchschnitt nicht.”

German Of The Day: Lieber ein Ende mit Schrecken als ein Schrecken ohne Ende

January 30, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Bailout, Debt, EU, Euro, German, Germany, Greece, Language, Socialism, Tsipras Leave a comment

That means “better a terrifying end than unending terror.” In other words, it’s time for Greece to get those drachma machines running again.

But the Greeks already know this themselves. That’s what they just voted for. Sure, we’ll get to watch how Greece and the EU (Germany) play around with each other for a few weeks as if both sides are tying to find a new solution for a solution that has already long been in place but in the end Greece will leave the EU. This new Greek government is the undertaker man (don’t shake that guy’s hand!). They will point their fingers at Germany on the way out telling Greek voters “we tried everything we could, but…” and then, well, it’s back to the real world again. And this will be a good thing for Greece – in the long run.

Hey, this reminds me of another German saying: Geh mit Gott, aber geh! Go with God, but go!

Entgegen allen Warnungen aus Deutschland und Europa lehnt die griechische Regierung Gespräche mit den internationalen Geldgebern ab. Sie seien in Athen nicht willkommen.

German Poverty?

January 25, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Automobiles, German, Germans, Germany, Hartz IV, Myths, Poverty, Vacation, Welfare 2 Comments

Nice try. This is another one of my favorite German myths. You can claim that poverty exists here all you want but everybody knows that poverty only exists in the real world and has nothing at all to do with this country. Or could it be that I am the one with an “unrealistic” definition of what poverty is?

Report: About 3.1 million wage and salary earners in Germany had an income below the poverty threshold, according to Saturday’s edition of the Saarbrücker Zeitung newspaper.

You have to understand how Germany works to know that this is ridiculous. For one thing, nobody has to work in Germany if he or she does not want to – ever. They get their rent paid and a low monthly allowance (and then work illegally on the side in a lot of cases) indefinitely = for life, if they want to (everybody know how or knows someone who does). Many people choose to live this way (I know a few personally). Their welfare system is called Hartz IV, by the way. So like, are you a victim of “poverty” if you choose to be? In a country that has the money to pay your way, I mean?

And you must also understand how a German defines poverty in Germany: “Every second low wage worker, some 1.5 million Germans, would not be able to pay for a one-week holiday per year outside their own four walls. About 600,000 workers were forgoing having their own car because they could not afford it.”

OMG. It’s certainly a cold, cruel world out there when you can’t fly off to Mallorca twice a year like everybody else does and/or keep your expensive German sports car on the road as God intended you to (even though you don’t believe in God, but still).

“The number of workers who earn scarcely or marginally more than the government unemployment benefits (Hartz IV) is alarmingly high.”

PS: Speaking of poverty, get your free copy of Dumb Deutsch here. Offer ends Monday.

German Of The Day: 5 Billionen

January 19, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Banks, Euros, German, Germans, Germany, Investment, Language, Numbers, Savings 2 Comments

That means 5 trillion (don’t ask, but it really does). And that’s how many euros German savers have set aside for a rainy day.

That’s going to be one rainy day.

Zwar investierten die privaten Haushalte ihr Geld trotz niedriger Zinsen vor allem in kurzfristige und vermeintlich sichere Bankeinlagen. Trotzdem wuchs ihr Geldvermögen von Juli bis September 2014 um 28 Milliarden Euro oder 0,6 Prozent auf 5,01 Billionen Euro, wie die Deutsche Bundesbank mitteilte.