This Is A German Swearing

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?”

We Must Save The World But It Must Be Affordable

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

“Ward, I’m worried about the Beaver”

Like wow. Who would have thought that?

Klausi the Krokodil turned out to be just another stupid beaver. The hysteria was wonderful while it lasted, though.

Das Phantom-Krokodil «Klausi» hatte die Stadt mehr als eine Woche lang in Atem gehalten. Die beiden Zeugen hatten angegeben, ein etwa ein Meter langes Tier mit langem Schwanz und Krallen gesehen zu haben.

The German Sommerloch

It’s here (the German “summer hole“). So get used to it. And remember: If it wasn’t for slow news (see yesterday’s post), we wouldn’t have no news at all.

Or as one paper here put it: “Exotic Animals in a Summer Loch Ness.”

Hey, news is a product, folks. And production is down.

In the United States the period is referred to prosaically as the slow news season.

Next Imaginary Crocodile Sighting Underway

Germans are totally tierlieb (fond of animals). Especially when they are the exotic and preferably dangerous kind of Tier they regularly think they see but never manage to find lurking about in the German Wildnis (wilderness).

This time it’s another crocodile, somewhere near Regensburg (with an emphasis on the crock here, folks). A guy out on a walk and “a lady on an air mattress” both saw the horrible creature so we can be sure that this time the danger is clear and present.

These are obligatory annual sightings, by the way. I don’t know why that it, but you have to have at least one here every summer. It has to do with the infamous German Sommerloch (which is just about to start), I think, but that’s another story.

Die Polizei in Bayern hat mit Schlauchbooten, Tauchern und sogar einem Hubschrauber nach einem Krokodil in einem Badesee gesucht – bisher erfolglos.

Underground Fashion Goes Underground

Now if only it would stay there.

Damn. This is becoming quite a ritual (yawn). But this is just what folks at Berlin Fashion Week do, so deal with it. Thirty-four models, four hundred passengers and seventeen labels on one subway train, what’s that get you? An underground catwalk – for the seventh time now already. Sheesh.

“This year is all about kitschy kitsch.”

What Germans Want

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.

The Party Is Already Over?

For the Pirate Party in Germany, I mean?

Sheesh. Even I thought it would take them longer than this to roll over and die. But the latest Emnid poll shows that their popularity (or lack of it?) has rapidly dropped to the lowest level since March (8 percent compared to their all-time high of 12 percent).

But hey, what can you expect from a party with an ex-boss who advises voters not to vote for them anymore.

Auf die Frage „Sollen wir die Piraten wählen?“ würde er inzwischen mit „Nö, lassen Sie es lieber bleiben“ antworten. Er sei von der Bilanz der Fraktion „immens enttäuscht.“

You Gotta Have Swine

And the Germans didn’t have much swine last night when Italy trounced them in the Euro 2012 semi-finals 2:1.

Having pig (Schwein haben) means to have a stroke of luck, you see. And Emma the pig up there (no relation to Arnold Ziffel) knew it all along, if you can beleive that. Which I don’t.

In the race to emulate Paul the Octopus’ World Cup predicting perfection of two years ago, Emma the Mangalitsa pig from Freiburg, Germany, vaulted into sole possession of the lead on Thursday evening.

Circumcision Decision Causing Division

And may need a revision.

Leaders of Germany’s Jewish and Muslim communities have criticized a court ruling they fear could make circumcision a punishable offense in the country.

Talk about having short vision.

German courts need more tight supervision.

There was no provision for all the derision now caused by that little incision.

“This is an unprecedented and dramatic intrusion on the right to self-determination of religious communities.”