I Got Your Center-Right For You Right Here

September 20, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: Angela Merkel, Berlin, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Satire, Voting Leave a comment

Although it might as well be a center-left. Um, is there even a difference between the two in Germany anymore?

Two days before the vote, a survey by Forsa for private broadcaster RTL showed Merkel’s conservatives — the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister Bavarian party the Christian Social Union (CSU) — 14 points ahead of the SPD, meaning she will almost surely return for a third term.

But her combined center-right bloc, which includes the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), was in a dead heat with left-leaning opposition parties, with both camps on 45 percent.

That makes the election in Europe’s largest economy too close to call.

“I still don’t know who I’m going to vote for.”

Creepy Northhampton Clown Identified

September 19, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Campaigns, Clowns, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Northhampton Clown, Peer Steinbrück, Satire, SPD Leave a comment

In Berlin of all places.

The Northampton Clown, who spooked residents with a series of freaky night time appearances, has said that he never wanted to scare anyone with his antics.

The figure, who made global headlines when he was spotted in full clown attire on Friday 13, has said that he “just wanted to amuse people.”

“Wie bei einem Horrorfilm.”

Green Frontman REALLY “Regrets” It

September 17, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Juergen Trittin, Paedophilia, Political Parties, The Green Shirts 3 Comments

Less than a week before the election, I mean.

Germany’s Green party is under renewed pressure to defend its stance on paedophilia in the 1980s.

In a newspaper article, the historian Franz Walter had accused the Green’s co-leader, Jürgen Trittin, of signing off a 1981 pamphlet calling to abolish the decriminalisation of sexual acts between adults and children “that occur without the use or threat of force”. In response to the revelation, politicians from the Bavarian Christian Social Union have asked Trittin to withdraw his candidacy from the upcoming election.

Trittin is quoted in the article admitting that his party had failed to block a proposal by the activist group Homosexual Campaign Göttingen for such a measure to be included in the pamphlet. He told the paper that this was “also my mistake, which I regret”.

“Die Grünen sollten darüber nachdenken, ob sie mit dieser Besetzung weiter den Wahlkampf in der letzten Woche fortsetzen.”

The Dresden Drone Escapade

September 16, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Angela Merkel, Drones, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Pirate Party, Political Parties, Technology Leave a comment

I guess this was the last Pirate Party fraternity boy prank before the election. Or forever, for that matter. They’re history here now, just in case you didn’t know.

And just in general, the varying reactions to the drone’s presence (Merkel’s smirk, the death stare from the other lady, and the range of reactions in between from the men on the podium) hint at the general way humans will react to the increased presence of robots and drones in everyday life.

Talk To The Hands

September 13, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Campaign Posters, Campaigns, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Hands, Humor, Merkel-Raute, Politics, Satire, Steinbruch, Stinkefinger Leave a comment

Or let them talk to you. It’s election time here in Germany. And these images below are forms of German politician hand-speak meant to subliminally woo undecided voters at the last minute. Or at least I can only assume that this is what this is meant to be.

“Volksnah” (in touch with the people) by the SPD.

“Bescheiden” (modest) by the FDP.

And “Ruhig” (serene) by the Chancellor herself.

Fingerspitzen sanft aneinandergedrückt, die Hände formen eine Raute – seit Jahren macht die deutsche Kanzlerin Angela Merkel immer wieder dieses “Geheimzeichen”. Und sie ist nicht mehr alleine…

PS: And everybody seems to be doing that Chancellor one these days.

1,700 Affordable Homes To Be Built At Tempelhof Airport?

September 12, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helections, History, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Airports, Berlin, City Planning, Construction, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Homes, Humor, Tempelhof Leave a comment

Planned by Berlin’s city government? Shouldn’t they figure out how to build one affordable airport first?

I dunno. I still like that Tempelhof mountain thingy plan the best.

Tempelhof, whose stone-clad terminal built by the Nazis in the 1930s, was closed to air traffic in 2008 and its main building is used for events including an annual beer festival. The airfield, which has two runways, has been turned into parkland where visitors jog, roller-blade on the tarmac and barbecue.

You Gotta Have Courage

September 11, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, History, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Die Linke, German, Germans, Germany, Goslar, Hitler, Honorary Citizenship, Humor, Nazis, Satire, The Left Party Leave a comment

68 years after Adolf Hitlers’s death, Left party town councillors in the German city of Goslar have decided it is now time for the city to show its colors and some backbone and fearlessly strip the unpopular Nazi leader of his honorary citizenship.

It’s civil courage like this that made Germany what it is today. Or something.

Some 4,000 German towns made Hitler an honorary citizen, and many have since stripped him of the title, some right after the war, while others did it only recently, such as the southern town of Trier in 2010.

Drive More Slowly, Take The Bus, Turn Off Your Lights, Turn Down The Heat, Ban Large Livestock Farming…

September 10, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Dictatorship, Ecology, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Paternalism, Political Parties, The Green Shirts, Verbotsrepublik Deutschland Leave a comment

To name just a very few popular (?) German Green initiatives.

“The Greens have this ‘ecological dictatorship’ feeling about them now. I used to always vote Greens. But not anymore. No one likes to be told what to do. It feels like the Greens are going to make everything more expensive.”

“Germans don’t have a sense of humor when it comes to cars and meat.”

The Big Green Machine She Is Broken

September 9, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Ecology, Economy, Elections, Energy, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Polls, Surveys, Taxation, The Green Shirts Leave a comment

Wah? The “energy turnaround” is going to be expensive as hell? Raising taxes? Veggie Day? And the hits keep on coming. I’d ignore the polls these days too if I were a greenie.

The Greens have been consistently bleeding support ever since the spring of 2011. Along the way, they have achieved a few notable successes in state elections, but the trend has been a downward one for over two years. It is as if the German electorate has suddenly decided that the party is no longer needed.

“Der Wahlkampf mit den Rezepten, wie man Kohlrouladen herstellt, ist zu Ende.”

Green Logic

September 5, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Climate Change, CO2, Electricity, Energy Turnaround, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Humor, Political Parties, Satire, Solar energy, Taxation, The Green Shirts, Wind Energy Leave a comment

This is how you save the world (from Climate Change).

German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in Europe. So it follows, then, that the prices Germans pay for electricity need to be increased.

That is why a turnaround must be introduced – the infamous Energiewende or “energy turnaround” – with which, for instance, a renewable energy surcharge is levied that increases every consumer’s electricity bill from 5.3 cents today to between 6.2 and 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour — a 20-percent price hike. For starters, of course.

You see, this way everybody is happy because every single one of us then feels painfully, on a day-to-day basis, just how much he or she is pulling his or her own CO2 weight, all for the good of mankind, not to mention Planet Earth. And Mother Nature too, of course. Whoever she is.

In the near future, an average three-person household will spend about €90 a month for electricity. That’s about twice as much as in 2000.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Helections