Merkel’s Million Migrant March Marathon Making Masses Mad

Where on earth could all of this German nervousness possibly be coming from these days?

Refugees

The 1,000,000 refugee mark has almost been reached, the Paris Attacks are barely three weeks old, Saudi Arabia is openly financing religious radicals here, broke-weenie German aircraft are off to Syria and elsewhere (for repairs?), Germany’s AfD anti-immigration party’s numbers keep looking better and better, the Front National is getting fat and sassy in France… What, me worry?

There is one thing that really and truly gives me the creeps, however: Til Schweiger’s threat to make a migrant movie. That might just break this camel’s back.

While vast numbers of Germans have volunteered to help refugees, there has also been a rise in anti-foreigner sentiment that has buoyed the populist and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

German Of The Day: Datenschutz

That means data privacy and Germans are notoriously big on that, as you well know.

Tornado

Take Germany’s planned reconnaissance flights over Syria and Iraq, for instance. Germans are so concerned about data privacy that they are already planning not to share the intelligence they might gather there with their allies. Sicher ist sicher (better safe than sorry).

The aircraft are expected to operate from Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey, and as Nato allies, the two countries would normally expect to share intelligence. But German commanders are concerned Turkey may use surveillance information from the flights to direct attacks against Kurdish forces allied to the West.

Deutscher Anti-IS-Einsatz: Berlin will Aufklärungsdaten für Türkei zensieren

I’ll Be Home For Christmas

Not.

Within the next 45 years, the nation’s population will decline by at least 10 percent — whereas most countries, including the United States, expect the opposite to happen. Some consider that dynamic to be the driving force behind Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to take in nearly 1 million refugees this year alone.

Then We’ll Send Our Better Half

Syria conflict: Half of German Tornado jets ‘not airworthy’

Tornado

Ain’t no big deal, as German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has stressed, because Germany only needs to send six Tornado jets for the proposed mission against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria. Six that maybe ought to be halfway operational, she means.

This German war machine, she is stll broken, señor (thank goodness weapons exports are still A-OK, though).

“Die Lage der fliegenden Systeme bleibt unbefriedigend.”

It’s A Cultural Thing

Pakistani-German couple in Darmstadt sentenced to life for killing their daughter

Culture

A Pakistani-German couple has been convicted of killing their daughter on religious grounds after she slept with her boyfriend. The teenager was strangled and dumped in a nearby forest.

In case you didn’t know, this kind of thing is referred to as an “honor” killing.

And by the way, there is no such thing as a life sentence in Germany. Life means fifteen years here.

Lawyers for the defense argued that despite being in Germany for twenty-eight years, the husband was “not properly socialized” in German culture and his wife “had nothing to do with the normal world.”

German Of The Day: Massenschlägerei

That means a mass brawl or free-for-all. Like the ones that took place between refugees in Berlin (and elsewhere) last weekend.

Schlägerei

So here’s the first predictable reaction in the German media: What have we (the Germans) done wrong to have caused this?

It must get tiring always having to be in the wrong, don’t you think? My own personal theory here is that these refugees just aren’t that much into other refugees anymore.

Meanwhile… When not beating each other up in refugee centers, it appears that these folks are being singled out for recruitment by radical Islamists. Jeepers. Who would have thought that?

“You can’t put Afghans, Syrians and Eritreans in the same place because they hate each other.”

Stress Lady Back With A Vengeance

Just like she already was here and here and here and here. And here.

Stress

Jeepers. What took her so long this time? I mean, what with all of this refugee-terror-soccer-match-cancellation-stress going on around here these days.

But as it turns out, she and her German compatriots don’t seem to be all that stressed out about those kind of things, believe it or not (believe it).

The latest stress survey indicates, for instance, that about one quarter of all Germans are primarily stressed out about the kind of stress that they put themselves under. These are Germans stressed out about being , well, German, I guess you could say. Damn. I wouldn’t want to live under that kind of stress, either.

Some 19 percent are stressed out about not having enough money.

Around 15 percent need more sleep and early retirement, I assume, because having to work for a living is a really big stress factor for them.

And 14 percent are stressed out by not having enough time to do what they want to do. You know, like being more stressed out about stuff?

The Germans remaining, I assume, were not able to adequately stress through verbal communication just how stressed out they really, truly are.

Wie die GfK in einer am Mittwoch veröffentlichten Umfrage herausgefunden hat, stellt der Druck, den man sich selbst macht, die hauptsächliche Stress-Ursache bei den Deutschen dar.

German Of The Day: Getarnt

That means disguised. You know, like the three terrorists from Paris who presumably made their way through Europe disguised as refugees? Now it’s out that at least one of them traveled through Germany.

Terror

Take this guy here, Ahmad Almohammad, one of the three who blew themselves up in front of the Stade de France. The latest reports indicate that he was in Bavaria at the end of October.

Alarming? Not alarming enough if you watch the news here. Making a big deal out of something like this would only unsettle the public.

“Zu laufenden Ermittlungsverfahren erteilen wir keine Auskünfte.”

Speaking Of Heroes

Or the lack of them…

Ahmad Mansour

This guy seems to think there’s a lack of them, too. Ahmad Manour is a group manager at the Heroes Project in Berlin and a family counselor at Hayat, an advisory body for de-radicalization.

The degree of Islamist radicalization among the youth in Germany is underestimated. He chose the title “Generation Allah” for his recently published book because “I find that there is an incredible number of young people here who believe in things like conspiracy theories, harbor anti-Semitic thoughts and don’t think along democratic lines. The Islamic religion is the only thing they have that conveys identity for these young people.”

“It’s also important that in view of Islamic terror Muslims ask themselves how such a monster could come to life among us.”

Im politischen Raum sei eine “gewisse Planlosigkeit” im Umgang mit dem Problem erkennbar.

Dear Hollywood

It’s Christmas season so here’s my wish. I know your first and foremost priority is to bash everything time-honored and traditional about us (as in US). I understand and respect that (actually I don’t, that was just a figure of speech). But seeing what’s going on in the world at this moment I would really appreciate it if you could possibly consider bringing back one of your own time-honored genres: The wartime drama. You know, like Casablanca? You could refer to it as a wartime propaganda film if that makes you feel better about it, of course.

Casablanca

I would like this Casablanca to have a Muslim hero in it, however. A Muslim Rick, so-to-speak. The reason being that one of the obvious intentions of the ISIS attacks in France (coming to Germany soon!) is to incite hatred against the Muslims living here and to hopefully, from their point of view, have this hatred lead to some form of civil war in ze Europe.

This may have seemed far-fetched a short time ago but a thoughtful look at the current atmosphere in Germany, for instance, should convince you that this is well within the realm of the possible.

The Traumfabrik (dream factory) needs to give us a positive Muslim role model here, in other words. The “normal,” moderate Muslims living here need one erst recht (all the more). This Ric, too, will need to do the right thing and combat the evil that is terrorizing us all and explain to everyone how it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, of course.

I know you’re busy and all these days and I really hate to bother you (another figure of speech) but I’m just thinking out loud here.

PS: Scarlett Johansson would make a great Ingrid Bergman character. No head scarves or anything, though.