Why Germans like talking things through? Come on, give me a break.
“Being German means overdoing something for its own sake.”
PS: The only good Amerika is a rusty one.
Category Archives: High Art
Secret Weapons Deals?
Since when has any of this been a secret?
That Germany is the world’s third largest weapons exporter, I mean (preferably to the Middle East these days, by the way). So what’s the problem here? Germany is simultaneously the world’s number one pacifist nation too, you know.
But to make matters even, uh, better, some here are unabashedly calling this enlightened policy “the Merkel Doctrine” now: It’s better to maintain peace by selling weapons, rather than have to fight for it. They have to be German weapons, of course. But still. You know, help those who help themselves while you’re helping yourself at the same time?
Wait a minute. Hasn’t that always been the doctrine here?
Waffen verkaufen, statt selber zu kämpfen.
International Olympic Committee To Disqualify All East German Olympic Medals
That the IOC seems determined to find a way to strip Armstrong’s time trial medal prompted Bill Mallon, one of the world’s leading Olympic historians, to ask in an email why the Olympic officials can’t do it for the medals won by doped East German athletes.
It’s a good question.
There actually is more documented evidence of East German doping than there is of Armstrong’s. The Stasi (East German secret police) files opened after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall gave names, dates, and dosages, implicating many East German Olympic medalists from 1972 through 1988.
Yuppie Scum Need Not Apply
What would you do if hords of uninvited strangers suddenly started pouring into your city for temporary visits in order to pump boatloads of money into your local economy? What would you do if affluent and upwardly mobile young expats moved into your neighborhood(s) and started opening businesses, buying homes and increasing the property values there?
Why you’d freak the hell out and demand that they get the freak out of Dodge by sundown, wouldn’t you? Oh, you wouldn’t? Then you’re not German. Worse still: You don’t live in Berlin and you’re not a Berliner, either.
Viva the Hipster Antifa Neukölln or something.
“The anti-foreigner thing started as a bit of a joke but now it is much more serious. This is critical, it is sneaking into mainstream thinking – it’s almost being perceived as normal to dislike tourists.”
German Blue Cards Going Like Hotcakes
A mass influx of skilled foreign laborers with “blue cards” to Germany is causing unexpected bureaucratic headaches and unsettling the already unsettled German xenophobic population at large.
So far, a grand total of 139 (that’s 1-3-9) foreign professionals have received the coveted card, camparable to the US-Amerikan “green card,” since its introduction in August.
“Wow. We had no idea just how bad people wanted to come here,” said one suprised immigration official. “This was way too easy. But how are we going to find jobs for all these folks now?”
Skilled employees from outside the European Union have apparantly been lining up everywhere and eating their achy breaky yearning little hearts out in earnest for this envied piece of blue plastic for quite some time now, partly due, it seems, to Germany’s celebrated image of being an overly bureaucratic and unwelcoming place for foreigners of all non-German kinds.
“German immigration law is still complicated and not very transparent for foreign skilled employees.”
These Blackouts Happened All The Time Before The Energy Turnaround Too
Munich was the next big German city that suddenly and inexplicably lost power in a big way. But there is absolutely nothing to worry about here, people, because/and I quote: “We do not know what caused the technical problem but it has nothing to do with the energy turnaround or all this talk about unstable power grids.”
Many Munich residents took to social networking site Twitter to voice fears that such power cuts could become more frequent as Germany implements a wide-ranging program to switch from fossil and nuclear fuels to renewable energy.
Stromversorgung in Deutschland laut Netzagentur trotzdem sehr zuverlässig.
Speaking Of Sinking Ships
EnbW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG (EBK), Germany’s third-largest power supplier, postponed a decision to invest more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.9 billion) in a wind farm in the North Sea.
“We need legislative clarity and reliable conditions before we make an investment decision of considerably above 1.5 billion euros.”
Prioritäten Setzen
You know, to prioritize?
The refocusing of U.S. attention on Asia that marked Mr. Obama’s first term had already provoked much soul-searching among Germans about the relevance of the trans-Atlantic ties that for decades defined their existence.
The failure to announce any early state visit to Germany is still perceived in Berlin as a snub, and has helped fuel the urban legend that Mr. Obama has not forgiven Ms. Merkel for refusing to let him speak as a senator before the city’s heavily symbolic Brandenburg Gate landmark.
“Berlin is not only a place of German history, but of American history. It is the city where the Americans twice triumphed over evil, first the Nazis and then the Communists.”
This Just In: The Taliban Is Violent And Yucky
Infidel is in, again. Or at least it is for the 27-year-old German who had travelled to Waziristan with his wife intending to free the area from the “infidel occupiers” after they had converted to Islam.
He has now returned to Germany because, well, he was “disheartened by the violence and annoyed with the group’s macho and drug-taking world.”
The former fighter also complained of the unhygienic conditions in the war-torn lands of Pakistan’s Waziristan province and Afghanistan that left him infected with hepatitis, and which were, in his opinion, “incompatible with the teachings of the Koran”.
Holy crap. The Taliban is violent? Wow, like nobody had told me about that either, dude. We feel your pain (in the ass). So welcome back to the real, as in infidel world.
Take Your Pick
You can have the German headline Zahl der Jobs seit Obamas Amtsantritt gestiegen (the number of jobs has increased during Obama’s term of office)…
Or you can have the German headline Arbeitslosenquote steigt vor US-Wahl leicht (the jobless rate climbs slightly before the US election – with the emphasis on slightly here, people).
The main thing is that they both remain misleading. I guess this psychological prepping now will be needed later to explain how dumb and ungrateful Americans are (if Obama loses) or how truly deserving his magnificent victory really was (if he wins).
Man of man. You can almost cut the nervous German nervousness here with a knife right now.
Arbeitslosenzahlen lassen Obama aufatmen.
Observing Hermann 