“Arming the World for Peace”

July 31, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Arms, Berlin, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Weapons Exports 1 Comment

Only German military industrial complex peaceniks can pull this kind of stuff off without laughing out loud. Not only do they sell their expensive weapons systems for gutes Geld (serious money), they arm the world for peace in the process.

Drawing lessons from Afghanistan and Libya, German Chancellor Merkel has been making quiet changes to Berlin’s arms exports policy. Instead of intervening in conflicts, she wants to help arm certain countries to provide stability in crisis regions.

“The idea of supporting partners in turbulent regions with weapons so that they can provide for stability is not implausible.” As long as Germans are doing it, I guess.

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July 29, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hi-tech, Hypocrisy Tags: Arms exports, Arms Industry, Berlin, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Pacifism, Peace, Peacniks, Satire, Weapons, Weapons industry Leave a comment

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

Because somebody has to admire them.

Biomass Movement Is Over (If You Want It)

July 27, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Bioenergy, Biomass, Energy, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Ideology, Politics, Renewable energy, Satire, Solar energy, The Energy Turnaround Leave a comment

Remember the days when crops were something people would eat?

Well the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina has just found out that that maybe wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

The German mania for “bioenergy” seems to have already had its day in the solar-powered sun. The academy’s report “Bioenergy – Chances and Limits” concludes that bioenergy is just a lot of bio gas (or hot bio air, if you prefer).

It plays “a minor role in the transition to renewable, sustainable energy sources in Germany at the present time and probably in the future,” requiring more surface area, creating higher greenhouse gas emissions and being more harmful to the environment than other renewable sources.

So what are we going to do with all those imported soybeans now? Eat them? Hey, the plan looked good on green paper, though.

“Die Produktion von Biokraftstoffen stellte eine extrem ineffiziente Nutzung der verfügbaren landwirtschaftlichen Fläche dar.”

This Is A German Swearing

July 26, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Businesses, Cussing, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Psychology, Satire, Stress, Swearing, Telephones Leave a comment

Boy, talk about the line being busy.

Two German entrepreneurs have devised a way for passive-aggressive citizens to blow off some steam – dial a telephone number and give the person on the other end a verbal lashing.

The swearing hotline, known as “Schimpf-los” (“swear away”) in German, has operators standing by seven days a week for frustrated individuals to jeer at and taunt using the most unsavory language they can muster.

“That’s the third time I’ve heard that today – is that all you’ve got?”

Germany Confused About Japan’s “Retreat” From A Nuclear-Free Future

July 25, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Humor, Ideology, Nuclear energy, Nuclear power, Renewable energy, Satire, Solar energy, The Green Shirts, Wind Energy Leave a comment

And here we thought that Germans were good at math.

Until Fukushima, Japan satisfied about 30 percent of its electricity demands with nuclear power, while renewable energy made up about 10 percent of the power supply. If one leaves out hydroelectric power, renewables hardly make up more than 1 percent.

“Japan needs a vision.”

We Must Save The World But It Must Be Affordable

July 17, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Atomic energy, Berlin, Energy Turnaround, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Renewable energy, Satire, Solar energy, Wind Energy Leave a comment

Cheap, in other words.

Germans everywhere are slowly waking up to the fact that their revolutionary switch to renewable energy sources is going to cost way too way much more than they ever thought they would ever have to pay – and the German government has now woken up to this.

That is why they have now begun a quiet backpedaling policy designed to prepare the German population for a slow turnaround from the energy turnaround that hasn’t even begun to turn around yet.

“For me it’s a priority that electricity remains affordable,” Germany’s new Environment Minister Peter Altmaier says, for instance.

He also says he doubts that Germany will be able to reach its goal of introducing one million electric cars by 2020.

Nor does he think that Germany will be able to cut its energy consumption by 10 percent that year, a precondition for reaching the illusory goal of 35 percent renewables the government is still aiming for, sort of.

This is the German Environment Minister talking here, folks. So you get the message, don’t you? And if you don’t get it now, you’ll get it later.

Regierung fürchtet die Strompreis-Wut der Wähler

Bundeswehr On The Front Line Again

July 15, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Arms Sales, Army, Berlin, Bundeswehr, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Industry, Sales, Ships, The Military, Weapons, Weapons Exports Leave a comment

When it comes to fighting for German weapon system exports, I mean. Talk about your military industrial complex. The Germans sure have one – and are clearly in denial about it – which is the real news item here if you ask me. Take the latest sale of frigates to Algeria, for instance (I mean please).

These pacifistic (German made) and very expensive peaceships not only make big profits for traditional Waffenschmiede (weapons makers) like Thyssen-Krupp Marine-Systeme, they finally give Germany’s alibi army something vernünftig (reasonable) to do: Train the folks who might actually be using these weapons one day – and in a thoroughly German thorough way, too, I am sure.

Who says the Bundeswehr isn’t an effective force? No, not a fighting one, as a sales force.

“Die Ausbildung wird in Deutschland und auf Hoher See stattfinden.”

What Germans Want

July 4, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hi-tech, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Artificial Insemination, Berlin, Bestiality, Drugs, Genocide, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Polls, Satire, Sex, Surveys 1 Comment

An online German government poll has just found out that Germans want legalized dope, a ban on sex with animals, more home births, a ban on genocide denial and more affordable artificial insemination, although not necessarily in that order.

Of course nobody asked how they would feel about the possibility of getting rid of online polls like these one day, but give them some time.

The online poll is part of an ongoing government initiative called “Dialogue on the Future” that aims to get ordinary Germans thinking about how to improve life in Germany.

PS: And in another survey it turns out that 57.6 of German women asked would rather watch “Sex and the City” (TV) than have sex.

German Solar Energy Industry Tanks, German Tanks Don’t

June 17, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hi-tech, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Arms exports, China, Energy, Energy Turnaround, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Imports, Renewable energy, Satire, Saudi Arabia, Solar energy, Weapons Exports Leave a comment

Unable to compete in the global market without the subsidy drug, state-ordained “energy turnaround” or not, Germany’s solar energy industry is getting eaten alive by cheap Chinese imports as we speak, so-to-speak.

“Ah, screw it,” German industrialists elsewhere in the country say to that. “We’ll just keep making a killing producing what we’ve always produced best: War technology. Tanks, Saudi Arabia!”

“But it’s not like we don’t continue to support the Arab Spring or anything,” another tankful German industrialist added ruefully.

German paper says Saudis want 600-800 tanks.

Genetically-Unmodified Germans Still Opposed To Genetically-Modified Foods

June 11, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Agriculture, Berlin, Food, Genetic Engineering, Genetically-Modified Food, German, Germans, Germany, GM Crops, Humor, Hunger, Progress, Satire, Science 1 Comment

Who cares if genetically-modified crops are now making up a large proportion of harvests in North and South America?

Germans aren’t buying any of this dangerous, hi-tech agro-terror crop, I mean crap because, well, genetically-modified crops are now making up a large proportion of harvests in North and South America (the key word here is North).

After all, any German you ask will tell you that the effect of consuming GM crops is unknown. Other than becoming hungry if you don’t eat them maybe, which is also unknown here. And this only backs up their argument, I think, sort of.

Nach den Plänen der EU-Kommission sollen die weniger strengen Gentechnik-Regelungen für Futtermittel auf Lebensmittel übertragen werden.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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