More German “Universalization,” Please

July 15, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: Bailouts, Banktruptcy, EU, Euro, Germany, Greece, Socialism 1 Comment

German policy-makers genuinely believe the harsh medicine for Greece and others is the right thing to do, he added. In some ways, Germany is “trying to universalize its own history,” Mr. Kundnani noted. That history includes an extreme leeriness of inflation and debt, plus more recent experience about a decade ago with a series of successful economic reforms, including an overhaul of its labour market.

“I don’t see Germany as being an outlier. I see it rather as someone who is in the middle ground and seeking a balance. Germany is taking a lead by managing the debate.”

2 Intellectual 4 Me

July 14, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Der Spiegel, Die Bildzeitung, German, Germans, Germany, Greece, Intellectuals, Journalism, Media, Snobbery 1 Comment

Nope, this latest Spiegel cover is not what I would call “defamatory or racist.” It’s just particularly stupid. But everybody seems to be having hurt feelings about it and calling each other names because of it and stuff like that, which always warms my heart. So keep running with it, folks.

“Our Greeks – Taking a closer look at a strange people.” Takes one to know one, I guess.

And always remember: “Spiegel readers know more” (one of the magazine’s more popular slogans). And they also love to look down their noses at people who read the Bildzeitung, for instance. There is a big difference, you see? Me, neither.

SPIEGEL-Leser wissen mehr!

Germany Defeated Yet Again

July 13, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Bailouts, Banktruptcy, EU, Euro, Germany, Greece, Socialism, Tsipras 11 Comments

No, it wasn’t World War III. It was the Endkampf (final battle) for Bailout III. Like, don’t these people ever get tired of surrendering?

Europe woke up on Monday to a lot of headlines about the humiliation of Greece, the triumph of an all-powerful Germany and the subversion of democracy in Europe.

What nonsense. If anybody has capitulated, it is Germany. The German government has just agreed, in principle, to another multibillion-euro bailout of Greece — the third so far. In return, it has received promises of economic reform from a Greek government that makes it clear that it profoundly disagrees with everything that it has just agreed to.

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

Good Thing Germans Have Strict Gun Control Laws

July 10, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Gun control, Guns, Laws, Shooting Sprees 5 Comments

Otherwise a whole lot more people might have gotten killed here.

A man shot and killed two people in the southern German region of Bavaria on Friday, and fired at two others before being apprehended by authorities, police said.

The man, whose identity has not been released, shot a woman at about 6:30 a.m. from his locally-registered Mercedes in the town of Tiefenthal, near Ansbach, police said in a statement.

The woman died at the scene and the man fled in his car, then fatally shooting a man on a bicycle in the nearby town of Rammersdorf, according to police.

The suspect also shot at a pedestrian and the driver of another vehicle, but hit neither, police said.

Der Tatverdächtige war “ein ganz normaler Ansbacher.”

At Last!

July 9, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Aliens, Berlin, Berlin Fashion Week, Fashion, German, Germans, Germany, UFOs 1 Comment

Fashion for the rest of us. At Berlin fashion Week. Wear else?

And speaking of aliens…

Angela Merkel FORCED to release secret UFO files German government fought to withhold – ALIEN investigators hope the release of German government files on historical UFO sightings will be a milestone in their quest for evidence of extra terrestrial life (when they write ALIEN investigators here they don’t actually mean ALIEN investigators, they mean alien INVESTIGATORS – I think).

“One thing is certain they won’t reveal any secrets about hidden alien technology or alien bodies, but then again we can always hope.”

Call Of Duty Gamer Accidentally Takes Over German Missile Battery

July 8, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hustle (Hoax) Tags: Bundeswehr, Computers, Defense, Games, Hackers, Hacking, Humor, Patriot Missiles, Satire, Turkey Leave a comment

Or he’s just that good. Apparently the same guy who ruined the Bundestag’s computer network last month, an overzealous German Call of Duty gamer has now managed to get a German Patriot missile battery stationed in Turkey to carry out several strange and “unexplained” orders.

One of them was for pizza, too, I bet.

“I don’t think it’s actually happened, which is not to say that some of these systems are not hackable in some way. It is possible in some way perhaps to detect the presence of it, but anything more than that is going to take some serious skills.”

Greeks Apologize And To Pay Back All Debts Tomorrow

July 7, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax) Tags: ECB, EU, Euro, Germany, Greece, Humor, Jokes, Trojan Horse 2 Comments

The nation of Greece said sorry to the European Union with a present of an enormous wooden horse.

Left outside the European Central Bank in the dead of night, the horse has now been moved into the ECB’s central lobby where it is proudly on display.

A gift tag attached to the horse, which is surprisingly light for its size and has small holes along the length of its body, suggested that it should be placed in the bank’s vaults overnight to avoid it being targeted by thieves…

Oddly, Greek representatives in Brussels have hinted that they may soon be in a position to settle their debts and have puzzled the French and German banks that hold their loans by asking if there is any discount for cash.

PS: Thanks for the link, A.K.

Germans So Shocked By Greek No They Decide To Go On Big Fat Greek Vacation

July 6, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Bankruptcy, Drachma, EU, Euro, Germany, Greece, Holidays, Socialism, Tourism, Tourists, Tsipras, Vacation 2 Comments

Stunned by the Greek no yesterday and the end of European civilization as they know it, millions and millions of German tourists have spontaneously decided to get their minds off it all by going on vacation to Greece again this year, just like the millions and millions of other Germans who did the same thing last year.

Not that it matters anymore or anything, but tourism used to account for 18 percent of what used to be the Greek economy.

“We are still taking bookings for Greece and there is no change in the levels.”

German Of The Day: Schwitzkasten

July 5, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Bankruptcy, EU, Euro, Germany, Greece, Socialism, Tsipras 1 Comment

That’s “sweat box” but actually means stranglehold. You know, like being stuck between a rock and a hard place?

Is the current five-year Greek drama finally going to come to an end today? Hardly, it already ended quite a while ago, the real drama having actually begun long before that, of course, generations before. The name of the drama is “Living Beyond Our Means” and now the current government wants to give Greek voters the illusion that it gets the chance to turn back the clock with one final vote, a final vote that doesn’t actually mean anything, of course, because the money is long gone and nobody is going to give you any-more-anymore. Said current government has seen to that.

It took many, many years of concerted effort – on the Greek side – to get this far, but at least now we will all have an “official” result: However Greece votes today it has already voted to escape “financial asphyxiation” by committing financial suicide.

After all, debt and guilt – “Schuld” – are the same words in German.

German Of The Day: Hand Over The Money Or I’ll Shoot!

July 3, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: EU, Euro, German, Germans, Germany, Greece, Grexit, Humor, Jokes, Language, Tsipras 2 Comments

And here you thought that Germans didn’t have a sense of humor. Galgenhumor (gallows humor), OK, but humor all the same.

Public broadcaster ARD, in its Morgenmagazin breakfast show, lampooned the tit-for-tat battle that has ensued between German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Greek counterpart Yanis Varoufakis, 54, in a video clip based on the 2011 French film The Intouchables, depicting the unlikely friendship between a wealthy quadriplegic and his African carer. Schaeuble, 72, has been confined to a wheelchair since he was shot by a deranged man in 1990.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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