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.

“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.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Helections