“Syria Tests Germany’s Culture of Reluctance?”

August 31, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Hypocrisy, Irresponsibility, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Politics, Syria 1 Comment

Reluctance? No reluctance here. Saying no is the standard German operating procedure in this country. You know that, Karl-Theodor. It’s just good-old German irresponsibility when it comes to international matters that might actually cost them something.

So what’s being “tested?” I don’t get it. Why waste all these words and all this time trying to make something so blood simple appear to be so complicated, Karl-Theodor? No need to explain. This is standard operationg procedure in Germany, too.

In the wake of the chemical weapons attack near Damascus, Western military strikes against Syria seem imminent. And Germany will once again demand a special role.

PS: Important German of the day here: Extrawurst. That means “extra wurst” of course, or special treatment.

German of the Day: Veggie-Klatsch

August 28, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Humor, Political Parties, Polls, Satire, Surveys, The Green Shirts, Vegetarians 1 Comment

A smack upside they green veggie heads, in other words.

If you believe the latest voter survey, that’s what the German Greens are getting at the moment.

Seems to have something to do with their recent Veggie Day Offensive. Or maybe it has something to do with their overall everyday offensiveness or another one of their many other offensive ambitious dreams for Verbotsrepublik Deutschland. Hard to say for sure.

NEUE WÄHLER-UMFRAGE SCHOCKT TRITTIN & CO.

Greens Loudly Denounce Disastrous Legislative Blunder Made By Awful German Government Coalition Currently In Power

August 27, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Elections, Greens, Humor, Politics, Schadenfreude, SPD, Taxation Leave a comment

Only this blunder was made by the Greens themselves during the Red-Green coalition government reign back in 2005.

Hard to believe really, but their 328-page election program “Time for Green Change” actually denounces as “a fatal policy change” the legislation they themselves introduced that increased the percentage of what employees have to pay for their share of the statutory health insurance here (employers pay the rest).

Well, I suppose it is better to realize one’s mistakes late than never and all that, but I’m not sure if that is really what was intended here.

If it wasn’t for Schadenfreude, I wouldn’t have no Freude at all.

“Bei all den erhobenen Zeigefingern gegenüber den anderen scheint kein Finger mehr für saubere Recherche im eigenen Laden frei gewesen zu sein.”

Makes Sense To Me

August 25, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Crime, Fear, German, Germans, Germany, Gun control, Incompetence, Indecision, Leadership, Merkel, Obama, Syria Leave a comment

“US Experts Want More Leadership from Germany”

There hasn’t been any leadership in the US for about five years now. Somebody ought to start doing it one of these days.

Germans aren’t the only ones with interests at stake in next month’s election. The US is watching too — and Washington is hoping that, once the campaign is history, Germany will show more leadership on global issues.

“I think the assumption Americans have is that Germany should always step up and take responsibility commensurate with its weight in the world.”

PS: There was yet another anomaly in the GCG (Gun Control Germany) yesterday.

There Are No Jokes

August 16, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Political Parties, Satire, Tourists Leave a comment

Well, actually there are. But in this case I’m not so sure.

The satirical political party “Die Partei” gathered Thursday at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to debut its latest campaign demand: eradicating tourists from the German capital.

The protest is a play on a debate in recent years in Berlin on how mass tourism threatens to transform the Brandenburg Gate, an important historical site in the city, into a a cheap Disneyland-like attraction.

Ob Ost, ob West, nieder mit der Touri-Pest!

Speaking Of Predictability

August 13, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: Aging, Günter Grass, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Left Party, Oskar Lafontaine, Politics, Satire, Sommerloch, SPD, The Nobel Prize Leave a comment

Zum Sommer gehört auch Günter Grass (Günter Grass is also a part of sommer – predictable as he is, just like those other Sommerloch monsters mentioned below).

This time the grand old man of letters suddenly felt the urgent need to attack former SPD boss (and now over-the-hill ex-Left Party boss) Oskar Lafontaine as being a sleazy traitor to the grand old SPD’s grand old cause, whatever the grand old hell that was.

I can only assume that this little outburst must have something to do with the upcoming federal elections. The SPD has ruled out ever forming a coalition government with the Left Party (one of the very few things they have managed to do right), but this is mostly because the Left Party, like the SPD itself, is already extinct (nobody has broken the part about the SPD being extinct to the SPD yet, however). Grass, of course, is about as SPD and as extinct as you can get.

And it doesn’t really matter that Grass is actually right about Lafontaine here. All it points out to me is just how much he and Lafontaine have in common. Nobody out there takes them seriously anymore.

Günter Grass gehört zum Sommer wie das Reptil zum Badesee.

German Outrage Industry At Full Production

August 7, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Data Security, German, Germans, Germany, Intelligence, NSA, Political Parties, Politics, SPD Leave a comment

When it comes to Germany’s BND foreign intelligence service having forwarded massive amounts of data to the NSA – legally, I mean.

Take the good old SPD, for instance. They’re hollering the loudest at the moment. And this despite the fact that this particularly evil cooperation with US-Amerika is nothing new at all to them. So not new, in fact (an agreement made in the year 2002), that the SPD’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier was the guy wearing the responsibility hat when this agreement was made – the current governing coalition was not even in power.

But hey, you know how it is when a political party is out of power (in more ways than one) and crawling and scratching to get back into the game. In an outrage and all. In a panic, I mean.

“In my view, the opposition has only itself to blame. Pretending to be the firefighter just to be caught as the arsonist – you can’t play both of these roles with any credibility.”

Meat Me At The Barbeque

August 6, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Humor, Meat, Paternalism, Political Parties, Politics, Satire, Vegetarians, Veggie Day 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.

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.

Veggie Day Will Just Be The Start

August 5, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Cuisine, Elections, Food, German, Germans, Germany, Green Shirts, Greens, Humor, Ideology, Political correctness, Satire, Vegetarians, Veggie Day 4 Comments

If the Greens get their way, I mean.

Although most German works canteens (the place where most working Germans take in their main meal of the day) offer one vegetarian day per week voluntarily already, this is clearly not enough for certain of the more nervous elements pacing the floors at Green Shirt Campaign Headquarters. A federal election is coming up people, so it’s time for a little agitprop sommertime theater already (agitprop Sommerloch theater?).

Once in absolute control – uh, I mean after the coming election in September – the Greens apparantly plan to introduce legislation indroducing “Veggie Day” for the good of all of us, animals included, whether we like our veggies or not (most animals hate them). Like how Organic Bourgeois of them is that?

You see, it’s not like the Greens are into Bevormundung or anything (paternalism, condescension, tutelage, bureaucratic PC dictatorship, etc.). It’s just that they’re into Bevormundung.

One guy from the FDP put it well: “What’s next? Jute Shopping Bag Day? Bike Day? Green Shirt Day?”

“Man muss nicht jeden Tag zwei Burger essen.”

A Pissed Off Germany Will Now Close This Here Listening Station

August 2, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, History, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Eavesdropping, Edward Snowden, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, NSA, Paranoia, Satire, Spying, Surveillance, Teufelsberg Leave a comment

Among others. So there, Amerika.

Who cares that these things have either already been closed down for years or no longer serve any practical purpose anymore? The German government is now going to demonstratively cancel a Cold War-era surveillance pact with the United States and Britain following concerns about their alleged electronic eavesdropping in Germany.

And who cares that this is clearly a symbolic gesture and therefore has no practical consequences for intelligence cooperation between these countries? It’s election time.

“This is a necessary and proper consequence of the recent debate about protecting personal privacy.”

The details of Anglo-American snooping on German citizens remain unclear and confusing, but many Germans have already bought the “utterly senseless narrative”, as Hans-Peter Friedrich, Germany’s interior minister, lamented this week, that “thousands of Americans are sitting down reading our e-mails and listening to our phone calls”.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Helections