Category Archives: Hideology

Which Germany Is This Guy Talking About?

October 24, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

“Why Germany Is Better at Resisting Fake News”

Fake

It’s not the Germany I live in. Germans don’t resist fake news, they roll around in it like pigs in the mud. Only they pretend their news is not fake. Their fake news doesn’t stink, in other words. And their fake news is different than our fake news, of course. Maybe that’s why they can pretend it isn’t fake: German fake news is generated by the government broadcasters and funded by taxation for which the viewers have no representation.

Here is a little example recently to give you an idea of what I mean. If 98 percent negative reporting about Donald Trump done by a state-run broadcasting monopoly isn’t fake news I don’t know what is. Germans would be skeptical about 98 percent negative reporting on Hitler. Nobody here bats an eye about this, however. What is there to resist, right?

More regulation of social media, less news consumption from alternative sources and no Fox News.

Berlin’s BER Airport Nonexistent And Too Small At The Same Time

October 23, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Previously thought to be impossible within the realm of phenomenal reality, airport physisists were more than a little shocked today to discover that Berlin’s infamously nonexistent and still not new BER airport – latest takeoff delay soon to be announced for 2019 – is nevertheless much too small, despite its nothingness.

BER

Too small to ever be a grown-up, major hub-like airport, that is. If it ever were to see the light of day, of course. Which it might not. These are theoretical airport physisists we’re talking about here, in case you were wondering.

Ein Start des BER vor 2019 gilt als unwahrscheinlich. Flughafenchef Engelbert Lütke Daldrup will in diesem Jahr einen Eröffnungstermin nennen.

German Of The Day: Gleichberechtigung

October 17, 2017 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

That means equality, emancipation, equal status.

Gleichberechtigung

You know, like with prison personnel? Although that’s not quite what this female correctional facility employee got as she accompanied a sex offender during his accompanied prison leave. She got sexually abused instead, before the guy hung himself.

Let women staff accompany convicted sex offenders on the outside? Why, uh, of course. You got to go with the times, bro. Only an outdated primitive like myself would think that maybe that might not be such a terribly good idea.

Wie konnte es zu der schrecklichen Tat in Niedersachsen kommen? Warum musste ausgerechnet eine Frau den verurteilten Triebtäter begleiten?

Hertha Berlin To Take Kneeling To The Next Level

October 15, 2017 By in Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Anybody can take a stand by kneeling these days, I guess. That’s easy.

Hertha

Berlin’s beloved soccer team Hertha BSC is doing this kneeling stuff now, too. Wow. Who would have thought that Germans play the American national anthem over here before game time? I had no idea.

Anyway, Hertha’s doing pretty well so far this season so one fan is suggesting that they should go whole hog and try playing in kneeling position throughout the entire game and/or season. The rules are simple: You’re allowed to switch knees only three times during a game. The Star Spangled Banner must be playing at all times, of course. Just a thought.

Der amerikanische Sportler-Protest gegen Diskriminierung erreicht nun auch Deutschland. Vor der Bundesliga-Partie in Berlin setzen die Spieler der Hertha ein bemerkenswertes Zeichen.

 

German Of The Day: Wegretuschiert

October 13, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

That means to airbrush out.

Lidl

And a lot of customers are cross at the big German discounter Lidl these days for doing just that: Airbrushing out crosses on their products. It’s like Lidl crossed a red line here or something. And now they’re caught in the crossfire. I guess you could say they forgot to dot their i’s and cross their t’s.

First it was a number of Greek products last month and now its Italy’s turn. And why is Lidl doing this? Apparently “to observe religious and political neutrality.”  They promised to stop doing this after last month’s airbrushing incident, however. I guess they forgot to cross their heart and hope to die.

Well I, for one, certainly want my moussaka to remain religiously and politically neutral but maybe this is taking it just a wee bit too far.

Damals erklärte Lidl, dass ein derartiger Eingriff dazu diene, die religiöse und politische Neutralität einzuhalten. Nun fehlen auf Lidl-Werbefotos in Italien erneut die Kirchenkreuze.

German Of The Day: Staatsfunk

October 10, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

That means state broadcasting. And that doesn’t exist here in Germany, of course.

Spiegel

Or at least that’s what Germany’s state broadcasters are always telling us.

It’s just that these non-state broadcasters, unlike Der Spiegel, for example, don’t have to turn a profit because they are financed by the state (taxation). Despite not being state broadcasters, I mean. It’s complicated.

Bei einem öffentlich-rechtlichen Sender zu arbeiten oder bei einem Verlag, das unterscheidet sich nicht so sehr. Jedenfalls nicht, solange es um die Inhalte geht. Das Geschäftsmodell allerdings unterscheidet sich durchaus: Während Verlage wie der SPIEGEL das Budget für ihre Angebote erst erwirtschaften müssen, nehmen es öffentlich-rechtliche Sender zu guten Teilen über Rundfunkgebühren ein.

Deutsche Post Introduces New Robotic Technology To Deliver Packages Late More Efficiently

October 4, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Intent on keeping up with the times, the German Post is now in the process of introducing a so-called Postbot that will help human postmen deliver their packages later than ever before, or not at all.

Postbot

Based on their human counterparts, the Postbot will regularly call in sick, inexplicably lose letters and packages assigned to it once it leaves the post office and regularly pretend to have ringed at apartments located two floors or higher before leaving a notice in the mailbox claiming that nobody was home when they were there. The Postbot will do this noticably faster and more efficiently, however, failing to deliver up to seven times the number of undelivered packages normal German postmen fail to deliver.

Union officials have expressed concern that the Postbot could threaten Deutsche Post jobs and insists that the robot must be granted obligatory union memborship to help slow down this frantic pace of technological advance.

In zwei Zustellbezirken wird das vierrädrige, 1,50 Meter hohe Gefährt den Boten hinterher fahren. Es könne bis zu 150 Kilo Briefe und Pakete transportieren, stoppe vor Hindernissen und überwinde Bordsteine. Mittels Sensoren erkennt er die Beine der menschlichen Postboten und folgt ihnen in Schrittgeschwindigkeit.

 

German Of The Day: Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz

October 3, 2017 By in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

That means… Beats the hell out of me. I think it means something like Internet Enforcement Law.

Mass

At any rate, it’s this really clever new law pushed through by German Justice Minister Heiko Mass (SPD) – a particularly lame duck because his party is now history after last week’s election – that forces Internet companies like Facebook to remove “obviously illegal” posts (whatever that means) within 24 hour or pay big fines. This takes care of “hate speech” forever, see? Brilliant.

Of course it will also take care of a lot of posts that will have nothing at all to do with hate speech but will be blocked anyway by these companies. Just in case, you know?

Free speech ist not quite as free as it used to be in Germany. But it’s worth it, right?

Kritiker bemängeln, dass die Rechtsdurchsetzung in private Hände gelegt wird, und sie fürchten ein “Overblocking“: Die Betreiber könnten im Zweifel lieber zu viele Inhalte entfernen, um nicht mit dem NetzDG in Konflikt zu geraten. Dadurch gerate die Meinungsfreiheit in Gefahr.

 

German Of The Day: Ideologische Leerformeln

October 2, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means empty ideological formulas. And that is what author Thilo Sarrazin accuses Angela Merkel of hiding behind.

Sarrazin

“Merkel claims that she cannot see that she has done anything wrong. She acts as though she does not understand what belongs to the core responsibilities of a national government. That is, to decide who is allowed to enter the country and who is allowed to remain. Merkel does not have the Germans or the German people in view, she follows an internationalist and universalistic political approach.”

This guy regularly pisses everybody off with these “incorrect” views of his. And he’s SPD, for crying out loud. More power to him, I say. When he’s right on the money like he is here, at least.

Merkel tut so, als ob sie nicht verstanden hätte, was zu den Kernzuständigkeiten einer Zentralregierung gehört. Nämlich darüber zu entscheiden, wer ins Land kommen darf und wer sich hier aufhalten kann. Merkel hat nicht die Deutschen oder das deutsche Volk im Blick, sie verfolgt einen internationalistischen und universalistischen Politikansatz. Das kann man gut oder schlecht finden. Aber viele finden das nicht gut.

“The Slow Death Of Europe’s Social Democrats?”

September 22, 2017 By in Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

How ya figure? They’ve been dead for years already, Spiegel Online. Don’t any of you over there ever read the papers?

SPD

I would even ALMOST venture to say that it’s ALMOST time for a social democratic walking dead rennaisance. But the key word here is ALMOST. It won’t be anytime soon. They’re going to get annihilated in this election on Sunday. Again.

In 2000, social democrats or socialists were part of the government in 10 out of the 15 countries that made up the European Union at the time. These days, though, the picture is a drastically different one. There is a real chance that German Social Democrats will no longer be part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition following Sunday’s vote and the same could happen in Italy after voters there go to the polls next spring. Were that to happen, center-left parties would only be part of six EU governments out of 28 member states, all of them on the European periphery: Malta, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.