Japanese Typhoon May Shut Down More German Nuclear Power Plants If They Can Still Find Any In Operation

September 22, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Nuclear energy, Roke, Satire Leave a comment

It’s all over. All over again already, I mean. German press reports have confirmed that typhoon Roke has reached Fukushima ITSELF.

Worse still, the dreadful storm has wreaked havoc there, having damaged one of the facility’s surveillence cameras. It may have even knocked it down. German citizens in or around Japan would be asked to leave the area immediately if there were any there to be asked to do so but there aren’t, so they won’t be. German citizens at home are asked to remain there, at home, until further notice.

It goes without saying that Germany’s nuclear energy policy will certainly be reviewed again although there’s not all that much more nuclear energy left here to policy anymore.

Außer einer durch den Sturm beschädigten Überwachungskamera gab es keine weiteren Schadensmeldungen aus dem bei einem Erdbeben sowie einem Tsunami im März havarierten Atomkraftwerk Fukushima-Daiichi.

No Positions “R” Us

September 21, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Diplomacy, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Libya, Satire, Security Council, UN 1 Comment

Diplomats in New York “have lost faith in Germany?” Was there ever really any faith in Germany to lose?

Apparently there was at one time a German foreign policy maxim to never oppose its European partners and the United States, or that’s what I just read, but I can’t remember that time. Germany’s strategy of avoidance with Libya finally took the Kuchen though, I guess. Like the famous Soviet njet from yesteryear, when push comes to shove, even the slowest and blindest diplomat out there has finally figured out what the German answer will always be: No position, as usual.

And Berlin was actually expecting to get permanent membership and veto power in the United Nations Security Council? What for?

Hey, they shouldn’t sweat it, and they won’t. Isolating themselves and having shrinking influence is better than being isolated and having no influence at all.

“Germany has no position yet, as usual.”

Phase-Out Gentrification Now!

September 18, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Gentrification, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Rent, Satire, Tourism, Tourists 2 Comments

Other cities would love to have a problem like this. Berlin takes in 20 million tourist overnight stays a year, and the number keeps rising. Investors and property owners keep rolling into the Stadt like, well, investors and property owners.

But for many Berliners, this is a crisis or something. This means that their city is in the process of becoming something called bürgerlich (a German cuss word meaning middle-class or bourgeois). Berlin is becoming gentrified (meaning upgraded, by the way), which is absolutely unacceptable because, well, many Berliners don’t want to upgraded, thank you.

You see, bourgeois gentrification ist deshalb (is on these grounds) unacceptable because it is a sign of economic dynamism in a city that has long been thought not to have any. Gentrification means that money is coming into town, that Berlin is becoming more attractive for that tasteless middle-class ambience so dreaded here, that the self-contained and highly subsidized island of Berlin is suddenly becoming a place of social mobility where middle-class lifestyle visions (which none of you out there share) are now apparently easier to realize here than elsewhere in the country.

German Gentrification is bad for Berlin, in other words. It has to be phased-out, just like German nuclear energy was. And don’t get them wrong or anything, it’s not because these Berliners are being intolerant here or anything. It’s just that they are being intolerant here – and acting more bourgeois than the bourgeoisie they despise.

Wer hätte sich träumen lassen, dass ausgerechnet das arme Berlin einmal ein Gentrifizierungsproblem haben würde? Es könnte schlimmere Nachrichten geben.

Holy Water Frightens German Politicians

September 14, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Pope Benedict, Religion, Satire, SPD, The Devil, The Greens, The Left Party 1 Comment

Large portions of the German political left have announced that they will not attend Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming speech in the Bundestag.

At least half of the Left Party delegates will boycott the visit as will over one quarter of the SPD politicians. The Greens will be protesting around the corner at the Brandenburg Gate during the speech.

“We have nothing against the Pope’s visit per se,” said one anonymous spokesman in clear and palpable angst hooded in black and lurking in the sinister darkness of one of the parliament building’s more eerie delegate seating areas late the other night, “It’s just that we don’t care for all those crosses and the prayer. And the number 7. And the garlic.”

“Er kommt ja nicht ungebeten, sondern alle Fraktionen haben zugestimmt.”

My Big Fat Greek Divorce

September 12, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness Tags: Banktruptcy, Berlin, EU, Euro, German, Germans, Germany, Greece, Humor, Satire Leave a comment

“To stabilize the euro, there can no longer be any taboos. That includes, if necessary, an orderly bankruptcy of Greece.”

You know, like an “orderly” divorce? Only this time nobody is getting the house because there’s no house to get (unless a house of cards counts).

It is not clear who is in the stronger position in the latest round of brinkmanship between Greece and the German bloc. If pushed too far, Greece can set off a powderkeg. The International Monetary Fund says European banks are highly vulnerable and need to raise their capital by €200bn. Many of the weakest are in Germany.

Two Speeds for Saving Europe: Slow and Slower

September 6, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, EU, Euro, Europe, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Merkel, Satire Leave a comment

Breaking up is hard to do. But it’s about freakin’ time already, don’t you think?

Now that it is becoming clearer and clearer that the euro crisis is not going to get fixed with the institutions at hand and the will that isn’t, Chancellor Merkel HERSELF has finally had enough and appears ready to do the one thing that will finally make everyone out there happy: Create new institutions and a “two-speed Europe” that won’t work either, but still.

What this means is, uh, I’m not sure really (can someone out there please explain this plan to me?), but I think it means creating something called a “core Europe” (the countries that haven’t filed for bankruptcy yet) run by Germany and then a “rotten to the core Europe” (all the other loser countries that nobody wants anymore) run by nobody. I mean, running on empty.

This won’t really solve anything, of course, but it’s an elegant European way of tossing in the towel and passing the buck on to someone else, in this case someone with absolutely no accountability who nobody out there has ever even heard of before: European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.

Are we having late Roman decadence yet? This divide and conquer stuff, I mean divide and save, makes me wonder sometime.

Van Rompuy doesn’t seek the limelight and enjoys writing haikus about nature in his free time.

Where was WikiLeaks here?

September 5, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Espionage, Gadaffi, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Libya, Satire, Spies, Wikileaks 3 Comments

When you need them (not), I mean. German spies working with Gadaffi?

A former senior German official has said that his country’s intelligence services had cooperated with Muammar Gaddafi’s spy network for several years.

“It revolved mainly around information about the fight against terrorism and therefore Germany’s security interests,” said Bernd Schmidbauer, former coordinator of the German secret services.

Oh. Well, then that’s OK, I guess. Carry on or something.

However, he stressed that Germany did not carry out joint operations with the Libyan spies, as the British and American intelligence services appear to have done.

A New Currency Order

September 1, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Currency, EU, Euro, Financial crisis, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Monetary Crisis, Satire 3 Comments

Are we having a Reichseuro yet?

“Conceived as a tool for integrating Germany into Europe, and preventing Germans from dominating others, it (the euro) has become the opposite.”

Germany’s neighbors and allies are growing increasingly concerned about Berlin’s foreign policy direction. Some even fear that efforts to export its fiscal ideas could mean the prosperous country has lost sight of the European idea. Or worse yet, that it wants to dominate the currency union.

You will save until it hurts, I tell you! Sign ze papers old man!

“Germany hasn’t been a reliable power for several years”

August 26, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking Tags: Berlin, Euro, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Kohl, Libya, Merkel, Satire Leave a comment

“Neither domestically nor abroad,” Mr. Kohl said.

“I have to ask myself, where does Germany actually stand today and where does it want to go?”

Merkel’s UN abstention was popular in German polls. And as the Libya NATO operation proved indecisive and messy, with rebels in pickup trucks taking towns and then retreating, and with talk of quagmire, some German officials were telling French colleagues, “We told you so.”

The Draußenminister Speaks

August 24, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Germans, Germany, Humor, Libya, Satire, Westerwelle 1 Comment

Explains Libya, I mean. Who says that Germans don’t have chutzpe? But I guess that’s the only alternative you have left once you’ve so loudly and unnecessarily painted/isolated yourself into a corner (it’s not as if they could ever admit that they were wrong or anything).

Guido Westerwelle, who many Germans like to call the Draußenminister (the minister on the outside or the out of it minister, as opposed to Außenminister = foreign minister), has offered his take on Libya. Not that anybody really wanted to hear it or anything. But still.

Ignoring that big ugly elephant in the room, that a human catastrophe, a massacre can be avoided with rapid and determined military action, Guido informs us that Germany’s strict nein to taking part in this action (sanctioned by the UN, despite Germany’s abstention) and it’s electing to go it alone once again and push for gool old-fashioned “sanctions” instead, this is what actually brought about the change currently taking place in Libya. He never even turned red in the face once while explaining this to us, either. Diplomats can just do that stuff, I guess. Even when they’re on the outside. Looking in, I mean.

Der deutsche Außenminister gibt den Libyen-Experten und rät zur Vorsicht bei der Beurteilung der Lage. Dabei trifft Westerwelle wieder einmal nicht den richtigen Ton: Anstatt die Lektion aus dem deutschen Sonderweg zu akzeptieren, tut er so, als sei der Erfolg der Rebellen auch sein Verdienst.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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