EU Demands 20% Steaming Crap Quota

May 25, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Amazon Prime, Bureaucracy, EU, Germany, Interventionism, Netflix, Quotas, Regulation, Streaming 1 Comment

Sorry. I meant streaming crap quota, of course. You know, when it comes to what Netflix and Amazon Prime is allowed to offer its customers here in Europe?

That’s right. The European Commission is planning to introduce a quota ensuring that at least 20 percent of the content offered by Netflix and Amazon Prime are European productions. This “identity-building measure” is necessary, the commissioners say, in order to, well, build identity (the European Commission’s identity?) and of course to continue to protect films and series that nobody wants or intends to watch but to keep on subsidizing anyway (“culture” in ze Europe is regulated by unelected state bureaucrats who know better than you and are here to help you whether you want their help or not and not by yucky old and vulgar supply and demand – just in case you were wondering).

“Wir halten 20 Prozent für sehr maßvoll.”

Germany Leading From Behind

May 24, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: Coal, German, Germans, Germany, Nuclear power, Renewable energy, Solar energy, Wind Energy Leave a comment

While going in the wrong direction. With lots of wind in its face.

At one point this month renewable energy sources briefly supplied close to 90 percent of the power on Germany’s electric grid. But that doesn’t mean the world’s fourth-largest economy is close to being run on zero-carbon electricity. In fact, Germany is giving the rest of the world a lesson in just how much can go wrong when you try to reduce carbon emissions solely by installing lots of wind and solar.

After years of declines, Germany’s carbon emissions rose slightly in 2015, largely because the country produces more electricity than it needs. That’s happening because even if there are times when renewables can supply nearly all of the electricity on the grid, the variability of those sources forces Germany to keep other power plants running. And in Germany, which is phasing out its nuclear plants, those other plants primarily burn dirty coal.

German Population Growing After All

May 23, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking Tags: Demographics, Germany, Migrants, Population Growth Leave a comment

Sort of.

Can you do the (highly optimistic) numbers here?

2035 leben acht Millionen Migranten mehr in Deutschland

Nazi Nuclear Bombs Found Underground Near Underground Nazi UFO Site

May 19, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hustle (Hoax) Tags: Germany, Myths, Nazis, World War II 1 Comment

Near these, a Nazi gold train was also discovered. And the Amber Room. And the Loch Ness Monster.

It too had been buried deep underground right next to the underground Nazi Time Tunnel device that helped Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan win World War II and occupy the dystopian alternative history-like America we all live in today, albeit in an underground fashion.

“Eventually, it will decompose, and we will have a second Chernobyl on our hands.”

German Of The Day: Späti

May 18, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Beer, Berlin, Corner Stores, German, Germans, Germany, Kiosks, Language, Späti, Spätkauf 2 Comments

Speaking of Berlin… Finally there’s something this town can do really well: The Spätkauf or “open late” corner shop.

These late night places are everywhere in Berlin and, as the article linked to here rightly points out, “The Spätkauf in Berlin is not just an opportunity to go shopping, it’s also a social center for entire neighborhoods.” Or it’s an asocial center at the very least. There are guys at my Späti who seem to spend the whole summer hanging out around there, supporting the local beer industry in the process. Hey, somebody’s got to do it.

Mensch ist man dort, wo sie zu meinem Hund „meine Sonne“ sagen: Der Spätkauf ist in Berlin nicht nur Einkaufsgelegenheit, sondern auch soziales Zentrum ganzer Nachbarschaften.

Latest Cultural Exchange Takes Place

May 16, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Asylum Seekers, Berlin, Cologne, Crime, German, Germans, Germany, Immigrants, Karneval der Kulturen, Migrants, Rape, Refugees, Sex Manual, Sexual Harassment 5 Comments

This time at Berlin’s Carneval of Cultures. Like, duh. Where else?

Police have detained three suspects after two teens were groped and robbed by a group of young men during Berlin’s “Karneval der Kulturen” festival. The assault was reminiscent of the New Year’s Eve attacks in Cologne.

Germans everywhere immediately began apologizing for not having first properly explained to these young men how sexual harassment, rape and robbery are not generally viewed as being socially acceptable in their country and then immediately sought to make amends for their shameful oversight by referring them to the German government’s latest $136,000 porn site specially designed for sex-starved refugees like themselves who are desperately trying to integrate with German women or anything else out there that moves.

Hmmm. They could have at least explained to that guy (I’m assuming here he’s the asylum-seeker) that the two of them are going to have to take the rest of their clothes off first.

The site is adorned with cartoon illustrations of various sex acts that are equally graphic and clinical. (Imagine the stick-figure man and woman on a public restroom sign pictured in virtually every conceivable sexual position.)

States Getting Safer All The Time

May 13, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Asylum, German, Germans, Germany, Immigration, Migrants, Refugees, Safe States Leave a comment

At least as far as Germany is concerned. Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia just got a whole lot safer than they were yesterday, for example.

How did this happen, you ask? It’s kind of like magic, I guess, but “safe countries of origin,” you see, are countries where asylum-seekers seeking asylum in Germany can be sent back to safely, in a safe manner. And this safes, I mean saves, Germany the trouble of having to deal with them.

The problem here being (and don’t tell anybody I told you this – it’s top secret or something) that most of the asylum seekers coming to Germany from these countries aren’t in need of asylum at all.

“A large number of people from the Maghreb states come to Germany for reasons that are not connected to asylum. The stay of such people must be ended quickly.”

We Are Also The Two-Thirds Percent

May 11, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Immigration, Merkel, Migrants, Polls, Refugees, Surveys Leave a comment

OK, two-thirds isn’t a percent per se, but still.

Germans don’t want Angela Merkel to run for a fourth term, it seems. They just want her to run.

A poll published on Tuesday shows that just under two-thirds of Germans do not want Chancellor Angela Merkel to run for office again in elections next year.

The poll conducted by INSA for Cicero magazine asked people if they thought Merkel should run for a fourth term and 64 percent responded that she should not.

Other polling figures show that if an election were held now, Germany’s two main political parties would barely scrape together 50 percent of the vote between them.

“Wenn die Flüchtlingsthematik in die aus Merkels Sicht richtigen Bahnen gelenkt und aus der öffentlichen Aufmerksamkeit verschwunden ist, wäre ihre letzte große Aufgabe erfüllt.”

We Are The One Percent

May 10, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Armies, Bundeswehr, German, Germans, Germany, Military Spending, NATO 1 Comment

Whereas in 1990 there were 585,000 soldiers in the German army, this number has now dropped to 177,000. The military budget, meanwhile, currently stands at a little over 1 percent of GDP.

That’s GDP for Got no Dinero, Partner.

But now Germany is going to change all of that or something and like totally increase its military spending by, I dunno, way lots. Or at least that is how we are supposed to see it. Flinten-Uschi (Ursula von der Leyen) has taken control and isn’t going to take it anymore – and is also shooting for a raise and a new job at the Chancellery one day, by the way.

Nonetheless, the new commitment still keeps Germany way below its NATO commitment to invest two percent of GDP in its military. For that it would have needed to raise the budget to €60 billion instead of €39.2 billion

Ständig kommen neue Auslandseinsätze auf die Bundeswehr zu, aber ihre Ausrüstung ist veraltet oder technisch anfällig. Die Aufstockung der Truppe löst die Probleme nicht.

“I can sing the Ode to Joy in German!”

May 9, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Boris Johnson, Brexit, EU, German, Language, Singing 2 Comments

Boris Johnson then added that “the French and German failure to get our jokes was a reason to vote Leave” the European Union (Brexit).

“There is simply no common political culture in Europe; no common media, no common sense of humour or satire and – this is important – no awareness of each other’s politics,” he said.

Dammit, that makes sense! Or at least I think it does.

“No, I don’t believe that leaving the EU would cause World War Three to break out on the European continent.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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