Category Archives: Helplessness

This hurts

October 19, 2010 By in Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , 4 Comments

To read this, I mean. It hurts from laughing too. This is the most pitiful article I’ve ever read on Spiegel Online, and that’s saying a lot–and that despite the fact that the guy at least got the title right: Obama’s Lost Magic.

Take a minute and read what informed, intelligent and sophisticated European journalists have to say when writing about Obama and the United States today. I would expect sixth graders to think this way, but… Whatever.

Now they are calling Obama a “weakling.” But that’s not fair. Naturally Barack Obama reacts in a more mature, adult way than his predecessor, George W. Bush. The problem is simply that Obama is smaller than the promise he made, and tiny in comparison to the hopes an entire nation placed on him in 2008.

Bad General

October 2, 2010 By in Helplessness, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

No, not the one staring Harvey Keitel.

There’s apparantly a brisante (politically charged) quote in Bob Woodward’s new poltically charged book, “Obama’s Wars.” And no, it’s not about Obama.

An American general (I won’t give his real name–let’s just call him James Jones) hurt German soldier feelings really bad a while back by telling them “You’re not going to fight anyway, so we don’t need you” (in Afghanistan). The Germans refused to fight with him about it, however.

Can you imagine that? The next thing you know this Watergate Woodward guy will start digging up negative quotes about the President himself.

„Wir haben den Deutschen gesagt, ihr kämpft eh nicht, wir brauchen euch nicht.”

SPD: If we throw him out then this will solve Germany’s integration problems

September 14, 2010 By in Helplessness, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

This is quite a bold and particularly stupid move on the part of the SPD, but hey, somebody over there has got to do it, I guess.

Normally more than ready, willing and able to follow the slightest whims and moods of potential voters (this being one of the main reasons so many of their voters have abandoned them and put them in the unspeakably bad position they are in), the Brain Police wing of the SPD lack-of-leadership will now go ahead and expel their all too outspoken commrade Thilo Sarazzin for expressing controvsial views about Germany’s Muslim immigrant community that a large majority of the German population shares (I happen to believe that this majority is actually much larger than most Germans think or will admit to, by the way, but maybe that’s just me).

Das ist gut so (and that’s a good thing too) because the SPD was actually showing signs of life as of late and even getting cocky and picking up in the polls in recent weeks (there’s nowhere to go but up when you’re on the bottom) but now they’ve gotten tired of patting themselves on their collective back(s), so there we have it. It’s time to head back down to the Keller again and rest their collective arm(s) a bit or something.

“Wir können in der SPD nicht alles dulden.”

“Thank you for travelling with Deutsche Bahn”

September 13, 2010 By in Habitudes, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

And now, for the rest of you out there rolling your eyes at the conductor’s English, he’ll start speaking your lingo again. And he won’t have to sound so friendly-like all the time either.

Everyone is relieved it seems (me included) at the Bahn’s plan to reduce the number of their annoying announcements – in English. They will now only be, uh, announcing them on trains and at stations where international travellers are more likely to be (so they can better figure out together what the hell it was the announcer just said?). They won’t be talking English at folks on trains going to Kleksdorf or Entenhausen anymore, in other words.

It’s not so much that these folks don’t always speak English that well you know, it’s just that they won’t stop speaking it. Back to the future, I say – I mean past, at last.

Eingeführt hatte der bundeseigene Konzern die englischen Durchsagen – über deren Aussprache sich manch ein Passagier auch amüsierte – auf Schienen und an größeren Stationen 2006 zur Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft in Deutschland.

I like this guy

August 23, 2010 By in Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

He’s so… German. You know, so provocative? I mean so Besserwisser-like (know-it-all) provocative? And in this case it’s all the more provocative because he’s provoking other Germans. You may not agree with everything this guy has to say, but it’s hard not to like someone who so clearly bends over backwards to be poltitically incorrect. And this is somebody from the SPD, mind you.

German Central Bank board member and former Berlin finance boss Thilo Sarrazin is now bringing out a book called “Germany is Abolishing Itself” in which, among other things, he warns of foreign infiltration/domination in Deutschland (wow, that’s a new one) – only this time of the Muslim kind. Yikes. The International Jewish Conspiracy is an established fact. But now the freakin’ Muslims are moving in? Like, I had no idea.

Die reine Lust an der Provokation treibe ihn zu „immer fragwürdigeren und menschenverachtenden Aussagen.“

Volunteers of America, OK

August 13, 2010 By in Helplessness, History Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

But volunteers of Germany? Good luck.

German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is moving ahead with reform plans to reduce the Bundeswehr to 165,000 soldiers, effectively turning it into a volunteer army.

This is a controversial move in Germany because, well, every move in Germany is a controversial move. OK, OK. At least the ones that have to do with the military are.

But like who cares? It’s not as if this new professional German army is ever going to be used for military purposes either. Not unless everybody volunteers to, that is. And how likely is that?

Künftig sollen nur noch freiwillige Rekruten eingezogen werden: Die Planer rechnen mit 7500 Freiwilligen pro Jahr.

Abracadabra

July 30, 2010 By in Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

How can you make 1000 cops disappear just like that? It’s not easy. It’s pretty simple though.

All you have to do is be the German government and spend $1 million on a UN program to train Somalian police in Ethiopia, then give them uniforms and weapons and send them back home to help keep the peace for their government (or what would like to be one) at which point they promptly desert and join opposition Islamist militia groups instead.

Currently, the transitional Somali government is struggling to suppress the militia, including Al-Qaeda sympathisers Al-Shabaab, who control as much as two-thirds of the country.

Help me man I’m sick

July 28, 2010 By in Hard Facts, Health, Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Or more sick than I was ten or twenty years ago, I mean.

That Germans are stark raving psycho schizophrenic wacko types is understood and all well and good, but now they’re getting all these psychological and emotional stress related mental health disorders too. Or at least a whole lot more than they used to get. For crying out loud.

Or at least that’s what this latest hospital report link thingy up there says. Four out of five of the most commonly practiced hospital therapies in Germany have to do with mental disorders these days. Nobody knows why this is, of course, although some suspect it might have to do with the fact that being depressed (or talking about being depressed) isn’t taboo anymore. Like how depressing is that?

“Während 1990 nur etwa jeder zwölfte Behandlungstag unter der Hauptdiagnose von psychischen Störungen erfasst wurde, waren es 2009 gut ein Sechstel aller Behandlungstage.”

Time to take another WikiLeak

July 26, 2010 By in Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Clueless and naïve? The German army in Afghanistan?

“The close to 92,000 log reports obtained by WikiLeaks do not include any new instances of excessive violence against civilians or illegal clandestine operations on the part of the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan, but they do show how poorly prepared Germany and its military were when they entered the Afghanistan war — and why their mission will likely remain unfulfilled in the end.”

The German army was clueless and naïve when it stumbled into the conflict.