German Of The Day: Diese Fahrt Endet Hier

That means this drive or line (as in bus line) terminates here.

Fahrt

Of course a foreign, English-speaking  person like yourself might think that it means “this fart ends here.” You know, like the buck stops here only it’s a fart? That would be incorrect, however. So don’t think that.

Over the past 18 months, a crime scandal has been rocking Berlin. It’s one that so far has required the work of 23 officials, necessitated a court appearance, and, this week, provoked protests from a politician on the floor of Berlin’s Senate. It’s the unusual nature of the crime that has provoked such controversy and upset. It wasn’t an act of violence against a person, a case of damage to property, or of fraud. It was, in fact, a fart.

Pups kostet Steuerzahler knapp 87 Euro.

Hertha Berlin To Take Kneeling To The Next Level

Anybody can take a stand by kneeling these days, I guess. That’s easy.

Hertha

Berlin’s beloved soccer team Hertha BSC is doing this kneeling stuff now, too. Wow. Who would have thought that Germans play the American national anthem over here before game time? I had no idea.

Anyway, Hertha’s doing pretty well so far this season so one fan is suggesting that they should go whole hog and try playing in kneeling position throughout the entire game and/or season. The rules are simple: You’re allowed to switch knees only three times during a game. The Star Spangled Banner must be playing at all times, of course. Just a thought.

Der amerikanische Sportler-Protest gegen Diskriminierung erreicht nun auch Deutschland. Vor der Bundesliga-Partie in Berlin setzen die Spieler der Hertha ein bemerkenswertes Zeichen.

 

German Of The Day: Wegretuschiert

That means to airbrush out.

Lidl

And a lot of customers are cross at the big German discounter Lidl these days for doing just that: Airbrushing out crosses on their products. It’s like Lidl crossed a red line here or something. And now they’re caught in the crossfire. I guess you could say they forgot to dot their i’s and cross their t’s.

First it was a number of Greek products last month and now its Italy’s turn. And why is Lidl doing this? Apparently “to observe religious and political neutrality.”  They promised to stop doing this after last month’s airbrushing incident, however. I guess they forgot to cross their heart and hope to die.

Well I, for one, certainly want my moussaka to remain religiously and politically neutral but maybe this is taking it just a wee bit too far.

Damals erklärte Lidl, dass ein derartiger Eingriff dazu diene, die religiöse und politische Neutralität einzuhalten. Nun fehlen auf Lidl-Werbefotos in Italien erneut die Kirchenkreuze.

Evil US-Amerikan FBI Snooping In Purely German Matters Again

And providing needed proof for the German judiciary system that evil German homegrown spy agencies lke the BKA are clearly not able to provide (because they’re nicer, or at least less evil).

Murder

Like the IP address of the German psycho killer who killed a little German boy and a German friend of his. In Germany. That seems about right. That part about killing his friend. With friends like the FBI you don’t need enemies. Or vice versa.

“Über das FBI haben wir dann seine IP-Adresse bekommen.”

German Of The Day: Staatsfunk

That means state broadcasting. And that doesn’t exist here in Germany, of course.

Spiegel

Or at least that’s what Germany’s state broadcasters are always telling us.

It’s just that these non-state broadcasters, unlike Der Spiegel, for example, don’t have to turn a profit because they are financed by the state (taxation). Despite not being state broadcasters, I mean. It’s complicated.

Bei einem öffentlich-rechtlichen Sender zu arbeiten oder bei einem Verlag, das unterscheidet sich nicht so sehr. Jedenfalls nicht, solange es um die Inhalte geht. Das Geschäftsmodell allerdings unterscheidet sich durchaus: Während Verlage wie der SPIEGEL das Budget für ihre Angebote erst erwirtschaften müssen, nehmen es öffentlich-rechtliche Sender zu guten Teilen über Rundfunkgebühren ein.

Airbusted

Here’s the latest big corrupt German corporation (OK, European corporation) valiantly fighting coruption – within ist own corrupt corporation.

Airbus

After getting caught, of course. And here we thought they were all straight up and flew right, right? Deutsche Bank, Volkswagen, Airbus, etc.

“We are in this situation because we decided last year to disclose the issues we had ourselves uncovered to government authorities and investigation agencies,” he said, adding: “This was the right course of action.”

Airbus im Korruptionssumpf – Schwarze Kassen und dubiose Deals: In mehreren Ländern laufen Ermittlungen gegen den Airbus-Konzern. Dem Unternehmen drohen wegen diverser Altlasten aus der Vergangenheit Strafen in Milliardenhöhe. Noch ist offen, ob auch gegen Konzernchef Tom Enders ermittelt wird.

The Mystery Of The Dying Dialect

It’s another one of those “not much of a mystery here at all” mysteries.

Icke

Why is “Berlinerisch,” the Berlin dialect, dying out? Do the math.

“Less and less people speak the true Berliner dialect,” was the title of a recent newspaper article that immediately alarmed me. Young people no longer find Berlinerisch cool, and the 60,000 people who move to the city every year aren’t planning on learning it either…

Meanwhile, only a quarter of all Berliners were actually born in Berlin – and that ratio is sinking. It’s bad enough that Berliners are bound to disappear; we can’t just let the language die out.

‘Icke’ should be World Cultural Heritage

USA

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

German

Because somebody has to admire them.

German weapons firms have found eager buyers in the United States. Stats show that stock prices of US gunmakers rise after shootings like the one in Las Vegas…

Heckler & Koch (H&K), based in Oberndorf, southern Germany, is currently building a $23 million (€19.55 million) gun factory in Columbus, Georgia, that will exclusively make “sports and hunting” weapons for the US civilian market.

“We’re the Porsches.”

Deutsche Post Introduces New Robotic Technology To Deliver Packages Late More Efficiently

Intent on keeping up with the times, the German Post is now in the process of introducing a so-called Postbot that will help human postmen deliver their packages later than ever before, or not at all.

Postbot

Based on their human counterparts, the Postbot will regularly call in sick, inexplicably lose letters and packages assigned to it once it leaves the post office and regularly pretend to have ringed at apartments located two floors or higher before leaving a notice in the mailbox claiming that nobody was home when they were there. The Postbot will do this noticably faster and more efficiently, however, failing to deliver up to seven times the number of undelivered packages normal German postmen fail to deliver.

Union officials have expressed concern that the Postbot could threaten Deutsche Post jobs and insists that the robot must be granted obligatory union memborship to help slow down this frantic pace of technological advance.

In zwei Zustellbezirken wird das vierrädrige, 1,50 Meter hohe Gefährt den Boten hinterher fahren. Es könne bis zu 150 Kilo Briefe und Pakete transportieren, stoppe vor Hindernissen und überwinde Bordsteine. Mittels Sensoren erkennt er die Beine der menschlichen Postboten und folgt ihnen in Schrittgeschwindigkeit.