Category Archives: Higher Education

German Of The Day: Vollverschleierungsverbot

April 28, 2017 By in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means full-face veil ban. Veil, what will they think of next?

Veil

That just became law in Germany, although it only applies for Richterinnen (judge ladies), Beamtinnen (civil servant ladies) and Soldatinnen (soldier ladies). All ten or twelve of them. How many women in those positions in Germany might want to wear such an awful thing, anyway? But hey, it’s a good start I guess.*

“Integration bedeutet auch, dass wir unsere Werte und die Grenzen unserer Toleranz gegenüber anderen Kulturen deutlich machen und vermitteln.”

* I don’t think men in those positions are allowed to wear them, either. But don’t quote me on that.

Happy Easter!

April 16, 2017 By in Hideology, Higher Education Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Rocket

Funny how a rocket can just explode like that. During such an important test, I mean.

China hatte noch am Freitag vor dem Hintergrund der stark angespannten Lage eindringlich vor neuen Provokationen und Drohungen gewarnt, damit die Situation nicht außer Kontrolle gerät. Alle Seiten sollten Zurückhaltung zeigen und nichts unternehmen, was die Situation noch verschärfen könnte, sagte Außenminister Wang Yi.

German Of The Day: Verpufft

April 14, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means fizzled out.

Schulz

Scientists recently hired to find traces of the mythical “Schulz Effect” in Germany are said to be busy preparing their resumes for new employment opportunities as the search for the mysterious, ethereal force has proven to be much more difficult than originally expected.

Meanwhile, German newspapers (ARD-Deutschlandtrend) are reporting that Martin Schulz’ popularity has dropped significantly behind that of his opponent Angela Merkel and even behind that of German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel, the previous SPD loser candidate he was brought here from Brussels to replace.

Verpufft or not, let us continue to wish these scientists all the best for the future because, after all, science marches on. Or in the words of Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.“

German Of The Day: Netto vom Brutto

April 12, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means net pay from the gross. And gross is it ever. Only Belgium (think Land of the EU) does it better. Meaning worse, of course.

Netto

According to a report just published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Germany has the second biggest tax burden worldwide. And we’re talking about middle-income people here, people. Not millionaires or anything.

The OECD calculated each country’s tax wedge – the gap between what employers take home in pay and what it costs to employ them, including personal income tax and social security contributions. Germany had a tax wedge for single, childless workers of 49.4 percent, behind Belgium at 54 percent. That means nearly half of a single person’s income goes towards taxes and social security contributions in Germany.

Please remember this the next time somebody starts telling you again how wonderful everything over here in ze Europe is (“socialized medicine” and all that). There simply is no free Mittagessen (lunch).  You can go broke eating free lunch over here.

„Die Belastung der Bürger ist deutlich höher, als uns bewusst war.”

Remember: Germans have more words for taxation than Eskimos have for snow.

Obama’s Red Line Finally Crossed

April 7, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Yesterday: “Germany welcomes Trump criticism of Assad” (Washington Post).

Today: “Trump playing the world’s policeman after all” (Welt – N24).

Syria

There’s talk and then there’s action. Talk is always cheap. Action is always, well, bad.

“I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line.”

Als Reaktion auf den mutmaßlichen Giftgasangriff des syrischen Regimes auf den Ort Chan Scheichun haben die USA erstmals seit Beginn des Syrien-Kriegs Luftangriffe gegen das Assad-Regime geflogen.   

German Of The Day: Inside Islam

March 31, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

That means Inside Islam and it’s the name of a new book by journalist Constantin Schreiber.

Inside

In it he describes his visits to 20 randomly selected “normal” mosques in Germany (he avoided anything that had to do with extremism) and how he was alarmed to discover that the preachers there were not only conservative but also undermined all German efforts directed toward equality and integration.

Believers were exhorted to live by Islamic values and to stay away from the sinful ways of the world outside. Those who do not follow Islamic rules were threatened with the hell fires of the other side.

One preacher’s statement sums it up nicely: “You can’t be both a Muslim and democrat (a supporter of democracy). There can be nothing that is both sweet and bitter.”

“Ich habe, wenn ich mit den Imamen sprechen konnte, auch immer die Frage gestellt, Denken Sie, dass Ihre Moschee ein Ort für Integration ist? Und es haben alle Imame interessanterweise gesagt, ja, unsere Moscheen sind Orte für Integration. Wenn ich dann aber zum Beispiel gefragt habe, wie lange sind Sie denn in Deutschland, dann habe ich zu hören bekommen, neun, elf oder vierzehn Jahre, dann habe ich gefragt, sprechen Sie Deutsch? Nein.”

The German Renewable Energy Revolution Is Not Only Expensive

March 17, 2017 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

It. like, doesn’t “work.”

Money isn’t everything when it comes to renewable energy here. It has to effectively cut greenhouse gas emissions, too.

Energy

Or it ought to. That is, maybe it could at one point but isn’t doing so quite yet. It will one day, though. Honest. We hope.

Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions rose by 4m tonnes to 906m tonnes, an increase of 0.7 per cent, according to a study by Arepo Consult carried out for the opposition Green party.

The Greens said the figures meant it would become “even harder” for Germany to attain its declared goal of reducing greenhouse gas by 40 per cent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels

Childless Chancellor Concerned About German Reproduction Rate

March 16, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Distraught by her countrywomen’s rotten reproduction record, childless German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called an emergency demography strategy summit in Berlin.

Population

“What’s with these Luschen (duds)?” The cranky chancellor asked her clueless ministers. “I mean, this isn’t rocket science we’re talking about here. Don’t they, you know, show them films and stuff at school about this, you know, kind of thing? Even I’ve seen films like that, you know. Once, I think.”

I think Germany is below average in terms of the help provided to young people. And Germany is certainly below average in the attitude that women with children should not work. In most countries it was like that 50 years ago but not today. That is just very detrimental to fertility.

Can I Have My False Pleasantries Back?

March 5, 2017 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

German facial expression of the day: Staring.

Stare

Oddity 34. You know you are in Germany when you regularly find yourself being stared at for no clearly discernible reason. I don’t know if Germans necessarily like to stare but they sure do it a lot.  A nice term a friend of mine prefers using is “unfiltered curiosity” but it’s staring all the same.

But it’s a wonderful trait: Firstly, you know the person is listening intently (they really are); secondly, since it’s very difficult to look someone in the eyes and speak coherently and come up with pleasant little white lies, the false pleasantries vanish and the conversation becomes honest and true – leading toward a final deep dive into the other’s soul.

Germans Think Renewed Storming Of Reichstag A Bad Idea

February 24, 2017 By in Helplessness, Higher Education, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Disturbed about Moscow’s plans to have hordes of young Russians storm the German Reichstag, concerned politicians in Berlin wish to stress that this could led to a dangerous militarization of Russia’s youth.

Friends

“Friends just do not storm friends,” one top official said, also noting that a new attack upon the German capital would only contribute to a further deterioration of Russia’s relationship with Germany, a relationship that is growing increasingly estranged at the moment. Russian politicians could not be reached for comment as the Russian capital has been moved to a secret location due to fears of an imminent German youth attack.

“Oh, this Reichstag is in Russia somewhere?” another top official asked later, finally figuring out that this is all just a big game. “That’s pretty deplorable, too.”

The replica of Berlin’s historical Reichstag, which has housed the seat of Germany’s parliament since 1999, will be built in “Patriot Park” and be used by the Russian youth movement, called “Junarmija”  or “young army.”