Absolutely Shocking Or Something

August 4, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, BND, Edward Snowden, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Meta Records, NSA, Paranoia, Surveillance Leave a comment

Who would have thought this possible? The German Bundesnachrichtendienst of all intelligence agencies, run by Germans of all people, in Germany of all places, has been systematically providing that evil National Security Agency of US-Amerika with vast amounts of German telecommunications information (meta records).

And the BND has been working closely with the NSA like this for over 50 years now, too. I know that there’s a news item here somewhere, I just haven’t figured out where it is yet.

“The BND has been working with the NSA for over 50 years, especially when it comes to the reconnoitering of situations in crisis areas in order to protect German soldiers stationed there and to protect and rescue abducted German citizens.”

“Der BND arbeitet über 50 Jahren mit der NSA zusammen, insbesondere bei der Aufklärung der Lage in Krisengebieten, zum Schutz der dort stationierten deutschen Soldatinnen und Soldaten und zum Schutz und zur Rettung entführter deutscher Staatsangehöriger.”

A Pissed Off Germany Will Now Close This Here Listening Station

August 2, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, History, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Eavesdropping, Edward Snowden, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, NSA, Paranoia, Satire, Spying, Surveillance, Teufelsberg Leave a comment

Among others. So there, Amerika.

Who cares that these things have either already been closed down for years or no longer serve any practical purpose anymore? The German government is now going to demonstratively cancel a Cold War-era surveillance pact with the United States and Britain following concerns about their alleged electronic eavesdropping in Germany.

And who cares that this is clearly a symbolic gesture and therefore has no practical consequences for intelligence cooperation between these countries? It’s election time.

“This is a necessary and proper consequence of the recent debate about protecting personal privacy.”

The details of Anglo-American snooping on German citizens remain unclear and confusing, but many Germans have already bought the “utterly senseless narrative”, as Hans-Peter Friedrich, Germany’s interior minister, lamented this week, that “thousands of Americans are sitting down reading our e-mails and listening to our phone calls”.

German Of The Day: Baden Gehen

July 31, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Ecology, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Humor, Jürgen Trittin, Politicians, Politics, Satire, Schadenfreude, The Green Shirts 3 Comments

Yes, baden gehen can mean to go swimming. But it can also mean to go belly-up or to flop horribly.

And that’s precisely what the German Greens’ top candidate Jürgen Trittin just did while taking part in an election “paddle outing” on the river Werra.

Me? Schadenfroh? Hell yeah. But hey, the federal election here is just 53 days away and you know how it is. Politicians just can’t avoid doing dopey stuff like this at times like this. So give him a break or something. And besides, this guy was all wet to begin with anyway.

The real question here is whether or not this is a portent of things to come. You know, for the Greens? We certainly wouldn’t want them to erleiden (suffer) a Schiffbruch (shipwreck) in the coming election, now would we? Or you wouldn’t, I’m sure.

Trittin, der in Göttingen für den Bundestag kandidiert, war mit Parteifreunden vom nordhessischen Witzenhausen bis ins südniedersächsische Hedemünden auf der Werra gepaddelt, um damit für einen Stopp sämtlicher Salzeinleitungen in den Fluss einzutreten.

Here’s How You Dress For Success

July 30, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: Agents, Berlin, Cold War, Communism, East Germany, Fashion, German, Germans, Germany, Secret Police, Spies, Stasi, Style 1 Comment

If you have ever dreamed of being a startlingly effective secret policeman in a paranoid German Communist dystopia, I mean.

The Stasi fashion collection was extensive. The agency sent thousands of spies into West Germany and had access to vast amounts of cash to buy western goods to equip agents with.

“For me, the banality of some of these pictures makes them even more repulsive.”

Nobody Wants To Work In The World’s Most Popular Country

July 28, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Blue Cards, Employment, German, Germans, Germany, Green Cards, Humor, Immigration, Polls, Popularity, Satire, Surveys Leave a comment

Why aren’t there zillions of highly qualified foreigners standing in line to come to live and work in Germany (but not like forever or anything if you don’t want to) as expected when the German blue card was introduced a year ago?

This blue card holder above (the person on the right) is only about one of only about 2500 who have expressed an interest in doing so since the card was introduced – and 70 percent of those 2500 were already living in Germany under a different status at the time of the card’s introduction.

I don’t get it. I thought Germany was so well-loved in the world and all that (there are at least 100 reasons for this I am told). There seems to be some kind of a disconnect here. Why are so many foreigners still insisting to prefer going to such yucky places like US-Amerika instead? Don’t they ever read the papers or anything? Hey, if you’re that uninformed pal, Germany probably doesn’t want you in the first place. So there.

Die meisten Blue-Card-Besitzer kamen aus Indien (1971) – gefolgt von China (775) und Russland (597). Das Bürgerkriegsland Syrien ist mit 389 Akademikern ebenfalls stark vertreten.

Germans Peeing In Pants Für Excitement

July 21, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Edward Snowden, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, NSA, PRISM, Satire, Spying Leave a comment

Stop watching us already!

It’s like science fiction.

NSA Now Building Spy Centers All Over Everywhere Anywhere You Can Think Of In Germany As We Speak

July 19, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, BND, Edward Snowden, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, NSA, PRISM, Satire, Spying 1 Comment

I honestly had no idea that Germans were that interesting to spy on, but German journalists certainly seem to think they are these days.

Word is that a new and thoroughly evil spying facility is being built in Wiesbaden which will be a base for US intelligence operatives from the NSA itself.

Too bad those party poopers over at there Germany’s BND are already denying it. Not that that matters.

Nach einem Bericht der Frankfurter Rundschau soll es sich beim neuen Komplex in Wiesbaden um ein Abhörzentrum des US-Geheimdienstes NSA handeln.

Stress ohne Grund

July 14, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Bush, Bushido, Claudia Roth, German, Germans, Germany, Hip Hop, Humor, Klaus Wowereit, Music, Rapper, Satire Leave a comment

Huh? German Rapper Bushido is going to get charges pressed against him just because he put out a song with lyrics against Klaus Wowereit and Claudia Roth (among other things)? Like, what’s wrong with that?

I think the real reason they’re giving him trouble is because his name begins with Bush.

“Ich schieß auf Claudia Roth.”

United Stasi of America

July 9, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, NSA, Protests, Stasi, Surveillance 2 Comments

Get it? A protest at the US embassy in Berlin and stuff.

The National Security Agency can gather about one billion times more information than the sinister Stasi police that were used to hunt down the targeted people of Nazi Germany.

And just in case you were wondering, Germans only do “strictly legal” spying. But you probably weren’t wondering.

Darunter war das Konterfei des umstrittenen Internet-Unternehmers und Multimillionärs Kim Schmitz alias „Kim Dotcom“ zu erkennen. Der gebürtige Deutsche lebt in Neuseeland und ist Gründer der – mittlerweile geschlossenen – Internetplattform „Megaupload“, über die die Nutzer auch illegal an Musik und Filme gelangen konnten. Seit 2012 warten die USA auf die Auslieferung des Unternehmers, weil ein Haftbefehl gegen Schmitz vorliegt.

More Cutting-Edge Berlin Fashion

July 4, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hysteria Tags: Berlin Fashion Week, Fashion, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Lifestyle, Satire 2 Comments

And we’re really talking cutting-edge here, people.

I think you have to have a freakin’ fashion Waffenschein (weapons permit) to wear one of those. Or at least you ought to.

Berlin Fashion Week is THE international location for fashion and lifestyle topics.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: High Art