German Of The Day: Verantwortbarkeit, Verantwortlichkeit und Rechenschaft

Take your pick, all three mean accountability. Sort of.

Brexit

You know, like the kind of political accountability the British just voted to get back again? They soon won’t have to comply to the whims of unelected Eurocrats anymore.

Funny, but in German (and in other European languages, it seems) there does not seem to be a clear-cut translation for that very simple word.

Großbritannien wird aus der EU austreten und erschüttert damit den Staatenbund in seinen Grundfesten. Es ist die größte Krise der EU in ihrer bisherigen Geschichte. Jetzt greift Plan B, doch gibt es den überhaupt? Bislang scheint niemand genau zu wissen, wie es weitergeht, der Schock steht den führenden Politikern Europas ins Gesicht geschrieben.

Is Nothing Sacred?

Talk about crossing a red line. Now all bets are off, people.

Nudists

The influx of more than 1m migrants has already divided Germany. But the latest row casts it as a threat to the very heart of German culture: the right to walk around in public in the nude.

Nudists at a club near the historic town of Meissen were incensed when they received new rules from the local authority suggesting they would not be allowed to swim naked in the local lake where they have been skinny-dipping for over a century.

Neues aus Absurdistan. “Wir bewegen uns seit 1905 nackt im Gelände.”

NATO Picking On Russia Again

And warmongering. Just ask German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD).

NATO

“What we should not do now is inflame the situation with sabre-rattling and warmongering,” he said. The “situation” being Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its continued military intervention in Ukraine, which is apparently something other than sabre-rattling and warmongering when viewed from Berlin.

Steinmeier, an honor graduate from the Neville Chamberlain Institute of Applied Appeasement, now specializes in mistaking cause and effect and is also branching out into the popular field of abandoning worried NATO neighbor countries in the East. But despite all the rhetoric, the German foreign ministry assures the world that Germany’s mighty army, a formidable threat to Russia, will be there for its allies whenever it should be needed.

Was wir jetzt nicht tun sollten, ist durch lautes Säbelrasseln und Kriegsgeheul die Lage weiter anzuheizen.

Remember: These Folks Don’t Represent All Muslims Living In Germany

They only represent about HALF of all the MODERATE ones: Nearly half of Turkish immigrants in Germany put Islam above law.

Turks

That’s right. The latest Emnid poll indicates that 47 per cent of the more than three million Turkish citizens living in Germany admit following their religion was “more important” than obeying “the laws of the land in which I live”.

32 per cent said they yearn to live in a society of the times of the Prophet Mohammed.

I guess we don’t even want to know what the radical Muslims out there are thinking. Like duh. We already do.

36 Prozent der Befragten überzeugt, nur der Islam könne die Probleme der Zeit lösen. 47 Prozent halten die Gebote des Islams für wichtiger als die deutschen Gesetze.

Volkswagen To Build E-Cars

But they haven’t figured out how to equip them with diesel emissions test cheating software yet.

Volkswagen

The sleazy, crooked, dirtball of a company also hopes to introduce more self-driving vehicles in the near future. If those work out, self-purchasing models will be the next logical step. And after that, who knows? The Welt or something.

Volkswagen unveiled a plan for the next decade containing culture change, as it strives to compete in an industry moving towards e-cars, self-driving systems and on-demand mobility – all while it deals with Dieselgate.

Mit Elektroautos in die Zukunft!

More Gun Control Needed

In Germany.

Gun Control

The citizens of this predominantly pacifist nation still refuse to address this very grave issue (no pun intended) in any meaningful way and therefore remain the world’s third largest exporters of deadly firearms.* Again and again and again. Like, when will they ever learn?

The only nations that export more arms than the Germans are US-Amerika and Russia, much more violent and less enlightened societies that have not yet learned to make atonement for their dreadful, awful pasts like Germany has – thus making it OK for them to be the world’s third largest exporters of deadly firearms, I assume. Es ist einfach kompliziert (it’s simply complicated) over here sometimes. No, make that all the time.

Die umstrittenen Lieferungen an Saudi-Arabien haben dazu beigetragen, dass Deutschland 2015 drittgrößter Waffenexporteur war.

*And tanks. And submarines. You know. And other stuff like that?

Confused Green Youth These Days

We all know how the enlightened left detests flag-waving. You know, flag-waving as in “a fallacious argument or propaganda technique used to justify an action based on the undue connection to nationalism or patriotism or benefit for an idea, group or country,” whatever that means exactly.

Greens

But the Greens in Germany have taken this to a new level. Their youth group has called for German soccer fans to leave their German flags at home during the Euro 2006 because, well, “Patriotismus=Nationalismus. Fußballfans Fahnen runter!” That is, Patriotism = Nationalism. Down with those flags, soccer fans!

How do you get to that point where something as harmless as rooting for your national team becomes a sinister act of rabid warmongering? Without using hallucinogenic drugs to get there, I mean.

Flags

“Besser Patriot als ein Idiot.”

PS: I don’t have a German flag handy but good luck with Ukraine tonight anyway, Germany!

Most Germans Don’t Want Brexit

According to a recent poll, that is. 79 percent of those asked hope that the UK decides to stay in the EU.

Brexit

This is interesting, I find. Because another poll indicates that the Germans are just as skeptical about the European Union as the British are.

A survey by Pew Research Center shows that while Brits may be the ones pushing to split away from the European Union, an equal proportion of Germans also feel negatively towards Brussels. The poll found that 48 percent of Germans have an unfavourable attitude towards the EU, exactly the same proportion as in the United Kingdom.

So what have we learned here? Nothing, as usual. Never trust a statistic you haven’t forged yourself.

Mit 79 Prozent wünscht eine große Mehrheit der Deutschen, dass die Briten sich gegen einen Brexit entscheiden und in der EU bleiben.

PS: Just read a funny comment in the Daily Mail concerning Wolfang Schäuble’s Brexit warning (how it would would shut the UK out of single market). “Germany is really scared stiff of Brexit as they are likely to be the only country funding all the other free loading countries if the UK leaves. He also needs reminding that the only reason the EU exists is because Germany couldn’t stop killing its neighbors.”

German Olympic Chief Shocked That Russian Athletes Dope

Systematically, I mean.

A German broadcast alleging the Russian state helped cover-up sports doping has been described as “shocking” by German Olympic sports head Michael Vesper.

Dope

In all fairness, however, it should be noted that Mr. Vesper was also shocked to find out that Bill Gates is rich, the Pope is a Catholic and bears shit in the woods. Like, uh, what kind of dope is this guy on? And where can I get some?

“Ich finde den Film schockierend. Er zeigt: Doping zerstört das Ansehen des Sports, das Vertrauen in den Sport, die Werte des Sports und die Sportler, die es nehmen.”

But Who’s Counting?

Crime

Migrants in Germany committed or tried to commit some 69,000 crimes in the first quarter of 2016, according to a police report that could raise unease, especially among anti-immigrant groups, about Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal migrant policy.

And how do the cops know that these are migrants committing these crimes? That’s easy: They’re the ones without any identification. 80 percent of the refugees coming to Germany do so without papers (and only about 30 percent of the grand total are actually war refugees at all).

Ain’t no big deal, I guess. So the next time you fly over to Germany from US-Amerka just leave your passport at home and explain that to the customs officials here. And good luck with that, too (maybe saying that you’re fleeing from the American presidential election festivities might work).

80 Prozent der Flüchtlinge kommen ohne Papiere.