How Do You Want Your ID?

August 18, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: German, Germans, Germany, IDs, NSA, Paranoia, Privacy, Surveillance 1 Comment

Rare to non-existent, many Germans will tell you. They place them in microwaves here to destroy the RFID chips inside, you see.

Or boil them – if they’re paranoid about microwave ovens, too.

Otherwise most of these folks appear to be able to live normal, somewhat productive lives.

When it comes to privacy, Germans can’t take a joke. After it was revealed that the U.S. National Security Agency had intercepted calls in Germany, sales of old-school typewriters were reported to have skyrocketed, as some Germans assumed that sending letters might make communications surveillance harder for U.S. officials.

It’s not only American surveillance that Germans are concerned about, however. On Tuesday, a 29-year old man was arrested at Frankfurt Airport after authorities noticed that he had microwaved his German identification card, reported German news agency dpa.

German Of The Day: Umweltunfreundlich

August 16, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Biodiesel, Biofeuls, E10, German, Germans, Germany, Governement Regulation, Interventionism, Language, Planned Economy, Socialism, Soja Leave a comment

That means eco-unfriendly. Or in the case of biodiesel, this means “being so eco-friendly that it is eco-unfriendly.”

More starry-eyed government interventionism in action. To save the world from destruction by using biodiesel they have to destroy the world first by producing it. This reminds me of those good old communist planned economy days. And we all know how that went with the best made plans of mice and communist men.

Dem Biokraftstoff gehört die Zukunft. An negative Begleiterscheinungen dachte keiner. Doch die Indizien, dass vermehrt für das Weltklima wichtige Wälder gerodet, Sümpfe entwässert und in Ackerflächen umgewandelt werden, mehren sich. Nach Informationen der Weltagrarorganisation FAO dienen nur noch 47 Prozent der Weltgetreideproduktion – Weizen, Reis, Mais – der Ernährung.

German ISIS Defectors Explain How Terrorist Lifestyle Was Actually Somewhat Disappointing

August 7, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: German, Germans, Germany, ISIS, Islamic State, Islamic Terrorism, Syria, Terrorism Leave a comment

Clearly not the sharpest knives in the drawer, two Germans who fought for ISIS in Syria are standing trial back home and are now prepared to give “deep insights” into the life of foreign fighters in Islamic State.

One of the very first deep insights appears to be that life as an ISIS terrorist really, really, really sucks. Who would have thought that?

Although facing a potential jail term of 10 to 20 years, the IS defector called Ebrahim B. claimed to have gone through such horrible atrocities during three months in the Islamic State that “for him jail in Germany is preferable to freedom in Syria.”

You Shining Symbol Of Socialist Superiority, You

August 5, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hi-tech, Hideology, History, Home Cooking Tags: Anniversaries, Architecture, Berlin TV Tower, Birthdays, Captain Beefheart, Communism, German, Germany, Socialism 2 Comments

You’re 50 years old or something. And you’re still ugly as sin.

But I love you, you big dummy.

It took four years to build the prestigious building, and the construction costs were three times higher than initially planned – a fact which only emerged after the fall of the Wall.

“Journalism Isn’t Treason”

August 4, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, German, Germans, Germany, Internet, Journalism, Justice, Law, Maas, Range, Treason Leave a comment

That’s very true. But that’s not the issue here. Go ask folks like Edward Snowden or Julian Assange and they’ll tell you. We now live in an age where treason isn’t treason, either.

The case centres on the Netzpolitik.org (Net politics) blog, which earlier this year published documents on plans by Germany’s domestic security agency to expand its Internet surveillance.

“The freedom of the press and of expression is a valuable asset. But this freedom, including on the Internet, is not limitless. It does not absolve journalists of the duty to comply with the law.”

German Of The Day: RIAS

July 19, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hi-tech, Hideology, Higher Education, History Tags: Berlin, Cold War, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Radio, RIAS, West Berlin 4 Comments

That stands for Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor and means radio (or broadcasting) in the American Sector – of a place they used to call “West Berlin.”

Now Father Time has managed to take care of something that the East German jamming stations were never able to do back then in the good old bad old days: Shut this broadcasting tower down. With explosives, in this case.

Von Britz aus ging 1946 der Rundfunk im Amerikanischen Sektor (Rias) auf Sendung. Später entstand dort Europas damals leistungsstärkster Mittelwellensender, mit dem jahrelang auch die Störsender aus Ost-Berlin überwunden werden mussten. Heute gilt die Übertragung per Mittelwelle als veraltet.

Historical Monstrosities Historical Monuments

July 16, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Architecture, Berlin, Buildings, Communism, German, Germans, Germany 3 Comments

We’re so ugly we’re beautiful.

What few in 1989 wanted was the supposedly dumpy, chronically unfashionable late-1960s buildings around Alexanderplatz, relics of a defunct, unlovable regime that were perceived as having little or no architectural value.

So that’s precisely what we all just got.

The monuments are certainly far from the worst constructions of their time. Best known and most popular is the World Clock, a kitschy but delightful sculpture-cum-timepiece created in 1969 that has long been a popular meeting spot for locals.

2 Intellectual 4 Me

July 14, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Der Spiegel, Die Bildzeitung, German, Germans, Germany, Greece, Intellectuals, Journalism, Media, Snobbery 1 Comment

Nope, this latest Spiegel cover is not what I would call “defamatory or racist.” It’s just particularly stupid. But everybody seems to be having hurt feelings about it and calling each other names because of it and stuff like that, which always warms my heart. So keep running with it, folks.

“Our Greeks – Taking a closer look at a strange people.” Takes one to know one, I guess.

And always remember: “Spiegel readers know more” (one of the magazine’s more popular slogans). And they also love to look down their noses at people who read the Bildzeitung, for instance. There is a big difference, you see? Me, neither.

SPIEGEL-Leser wissen mehr!

Little Oskar Thinking Out Of The Box Again

July 12, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Humor, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Currencies, Economics, Euro, German, Germans, Germany, Greece, Grexit, Money, Oskar Lafonataine, Socialism, SPD, The Left 1 Comment

Well known for his refreshing viewpoints, Mr. ex-SPD, ex-Left, ex-Bolshevist, ex-you-name-it Oskar Lafontaine himself has come up with a brilliant new idea to save Greece from its upcoming euro Grexit exit: Get rid of the euro first.

Being the true radical thinker that he is, he seems to have devised a radical new European economic system by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without having to use a medium of exchange like dirty, filthy, old (or in his case new) money. And the way things look right now, Greece will be the first country to get the chance to test this out in a big way.

“Der Euro ist ein Rückschritt im historischen Projekt der europäischen Integration. Der Euro ist schon gescheitert, wir dürfen uns da keinen Illusionen hingeben.”

Good Thing Germans Have Strict Gun Control Laws

July 10, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Gun control, Guns, Laws, Shooting Sprees 5 Comments

Otherwise a whole lot more people might have gotten killed here.

A man shot and killed two people in the southern German region of Bavaria on Friday, and fired at two others before being apprehended by authorities, police said.

The man, whose identity has not been released, shot a woman at about 6:30 a.m. from his locally-registered Mercedes in the town of Tiefenthal, near Ansbach, police said in a statement.

The woman died at the scene and the man fled in his car, then fatally shooting a man on a bicycle in the nearby town of Rammersdorf, according to police.

The suspect also shot at a pedestrian and the driver of another vehicle, but hit neither, police said.

Der Tatverdächtige war “ein ganz normaler Ansbacher.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Hideology