Category Archives: Helplessness

Germany Talks Tough To Gaddafi Now That He’s Gone

February 22, 2011 By in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

He is gone by now, right? No matter. Libya has left him so it comes down to the same thing.

After recently flying to Tehran to meet with Iran’s otherwise quite isolated president, Mr. Laugh-A-Minute Mahmoud Ahmadinejad–a condition made by the Iranians in order to secure the release of two German hostages–German foreign minster Guido Westerwelle wants the world to know that he can also be a real toughy too and has threatened the now irrelevant Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi with “sanctions” should the violence in Libya continue.

Well, if The Artist Formally Known As Gaddafi isn’t gone by now, the threat of German sanctions will certainly be the last straw that will break his camel’s back, right?

“We are still absolutely clear about the fact that the situation in Iran concerning human rights and political freedoms is unacceptably bad.”

Mubarak taken ill

February 7, 2011 By in Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

The very thought of flying off to a luxury health clinic in Germany for a “prolonged health check” makes him sick to his stomach.

Although perhaps an elegant face-saving way for him to leave Egypt and maybe maintain relative order there for a longer transition (should he resign immediately, according to the Egyptian constitution, new elections would have to be held within 60 days), Mubarak cringes at the thought of the all too thorough and prolonged examinations German doctors will put him through once they get hold of him. When you’re a private patient like him over here, they really go hog wild too. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.

Das Thema habe demnach auch bei den Gesprächen von Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel mit US-Außenministerin Hillary Clinton am Wochenende in München keine Rolle gespielt.

It’s official now

February 1, 2011 By in Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

When it gets to the point where even 24 German beauty queen types notice that there’s something going on in Egypt and flee the country in haste, some even without make-up (they had been preparing for the “Miss Germany 2011” pageant down there), then there’s definitely something going on in Egypt.

The German Foreign Office wasn’t much quicker in noticing either, by the way. They didn’t start issuing real travel warnings until yesterday.

„Nachdem aber alle wesentlichen Fotoshootings und Aktionen im Kasten sind, haben wir uns vorsorglich zur frühen Rückreise entschieden.“

They don’t call it the S(tress)-Bahn here for nothing

January 4, 2011 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Only in Berlin? I’m not so sure. Remember way back when (getting on two years ago) when the Berliner S-Bahn commuter trains had to go on a Notfahrplan (emergency schedule) bis auf Weiteres (until further notice) because of massive problems they were having with their brakes (they hadn’t been checked or maintained properly)?

Remember then about a year or so later when there was a Not-Notfahrplan (emergency emergency schedule) for the same S-Bahn system when something called “winter” hit?

Well winter has struck yet again and we now have our next Not-Notfahrplan (irregular, 20-minute intervals for the few trains that are still running–about 200 of a 500 fleet) and there’s no end in sight. Two years on, people.

It’s not all that out of the ordinary if you stop to think about it, really. German Baustellen (construction sites) are generally built to last. And to last and to last and to last. And we have to be fair here too when it comes to these difficult winter conditions: Germany isn’t a country that has ever had to deal with things like “snow” in the past, you know–or at least that’s what one must assume.

Personally, I’m confident that these trains will all be up and running on regular schedule next year. In the spring of 2012, I mean.

“Because we can’t remember the hard winters of the 1970s, we resort to the word ‘chaos.'”

Germany Pulls Out Big Guns

January 2, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The mullah regime in Tehran must be shaking in its boots now (do mullahs even wear boots?).

More than one hundred (100) prominent Germans have signed an open letter to the Iranian government calling for the release of two German journalists being held by the Iranians under the standard charge of espionage for interviewing the son of some woman down there who is going to be stoned to death for adultry–although I can’t really see why anybody would consider this being a newsworthy item or anything (the getting stoned for adultry part), but still.

The Iranians may regularly sneer in disdain at Merkel, Westerwelle and Co., but when folks like freakin’ Franz Beckenbauer get pissed off, things are going to start happening, and pronto.

And indeed, they already have. Clearly anticipating the Beckenbauer Vorstoß (foray), Iranians in the background (and there certainly seems to be a whole lot of those, don’t you think?) have convinced the woman they are about to murder to come out into the daylight for a few minutes to announce her intention to sue the journalist/spies in question for having had the audacity and/or nerve to interview her son.

And you thought Americans were litigation-happy.

“The woman who has been sentenced to death was allowed to leave her jail cell for a few hours to declare in front of western TV cameras that she would file a suit against our reporters. Does Iran really think that a strange farce like this will improve the credibility of its justice system abroad?”

“Handy” finally verboten!

December 30, 2010 By in Helplessness, Higher Education, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

It’s about freakin’ time somebody got rid of that awful “English” word–and all those other so-called English words and phrases that Germans are always throwing around here so disrespectfully as if they were, I dunno, English or something.

Every time I accidentally use the word handy in English conversation (with other native speakers who don’t speak German, I mean) they look at me as if I had just arrived from Mars.

Germany’s Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer has finally struck a blow for German (and English) language preservation by enforcing a ban in his ministry on the use of what Germans working there think are English words and phrases.

Handy is one of them, like I said. Another favorite of mine that I hear in Berlin all the time is Coffee Togo. Well that’s how they pronounce it. I swear. Apparantly many Berliners are actually convinced that the coffee you can now get in those portable styrofoam cups to take along with you is from the country of Togo.

Another good one is life. You know, as in “Life Show?”

Or how about Pizza Hut? Many Germans pronounce it as the Transport Minister would expect them to and actually think that the place is called Pizza Hat.

So knock yourself out, Herr Ramsauer. Help preserve my language. You can crack down on abuse like this as often and as hard as you think necessary. Please. I mean, bitte.

Gegen den Mainstream zu leben, kann schließlich ganz schön in sein.

“Aloof, elitist and indecisive”

December 23, 2010 By in Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Damn. And that’s coming from a German journalist dude too. And who knows more about being aloof, elitist and indecisive than they do?

“Barack Obama was the biggest loser of 2010.” Looks like once the going gets tough enough (for Obama), the German intelligentsia get going (as in abandoning ship).

Now, just days before Christmas, Congress has ratified the New START disarmament treaty with Russia. … Will Obama build on this victory? The opposite is much more probable.

You’ll do it my way

December 16, 2010 By in Heconomy, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Or it’s the highway. Does that summit up enough for you, Freunde?

Let us sing.

And now, the end is here
And so I face the final curtain

No, wait. This verse is better.

Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention

No, maybe this one instead.

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you know
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way

“The defiant stand came as Moody’s issued a downgrade warning on Spain owing to “high refinancing needs in 2011″ and the risk of further bank bail-outs.”

Talk to the hand

December 8, 2010 By in Heconomy, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

“They are rejecting an idea before studying it.” What else is new, Jean-Claude? Remember Iraq? The Germans said no to that before even being asked.

Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker “launched a blistering attack” on Germany for its flat refusal to even consider his proposal to create eurozone bonds (“E-Bonds” would help weaker eurozone members raise money). He called the Germans “un-European.” Ouch. It doesn’t get much lower than that, people. Unless it’s “un-Southern European” maybe. Lower, get it?

Too bad he mixed up Merkel & Co. with somebody who gives a Scheiße. Just get used to it, Jean-Claude. And you just keep raising your hand as often as you like.

“This is very strange. This way of creating taboo areas in Europe and not dealing with others’ ideas is a very un-European way of dealing with European matters.”

Military restructuring?

October 27, 2010 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Ich bin gespannt (I’m dying to know what’ll happen here).

Sure, making the German Bundeswehr more efficient and less bureaucratic sounds like a great idea, at first.

But think it through, people: There are 250,000 troops right now, of which only 10,000 (tops) can ever be deployed at once (not put into real combat situations mind you, not officially anyway, “deployed”). And I’m not joking here with the numbers, by the way.

So what happens when they drop the number of troops down to 180,000? Are we really supposed to believe that once they do the Bundeswehr will “double the number of troops that can be deployed at any one time from 7,000 to 14,000?”

Wer’s glaubt wird selig! (A likely story.)