Then NSA spying on Germany most certainly is.
The German government faced an angry reaction from Turkey and accusations of hypocrisy from its own opposition on Monday after media reports that its intelligence agency spied on its NATO ally.
“Dass ein geheimer Nachrichtendienst dort Erkenntnisse sammelt, kann man ihm nicht vorwerfen. Das ist seine Aufgabe.”
German television style. I like this host.
He goes for the hottest hot sauce (minute 2:30) because he’s that cool and then has to have somebody else take over for him so they can drive him to the hospital.
Nachdem er sich an einem Stück Currywurst mit einer extrem scharfen Würzsauce versucht hatte, musste er die Moderation abbrechen. “Bild.de” berichtet, dass der 38-Jährige anschließend hinter der Bühne mit Kreislaufversagen zusammengebrochen sei und in ein Krankenhaus gebracht werden musste.
Well, in the real world… Not at all. But here in Germany…
Employment minister Andrea Nahles (SPD) wants to review the situation to see if an anti-stress law can be introduced. The number of stress-related illnesses continues to rise in this country.
If this wasn’t so funny it would be serious. The problem is that nobody who reads this here is laughing. That makes this much more serious than I thought. Which isn’t funny.
Die SPD und Gewerkschaften fordern erneut eine gesetzliche Anti-Stress-Verordnung. Kann gesetzlich geregelt werden, dass der Chef seine Mitarbeiter nicht anrufen darf?
Even when it comes to industrial piracy.
German companies are ranked second in the world for industrial plagiarism, a global study released today has found (only China does it better). The numbers indicate that 1 in 4 plagiarized tech goods are made in Germany.
Of course the only problem with this study is that it was made by the the Federation of German Machine and Equipment Builders (or VDMA) so it may have been plagiarized itself.
And no, this wasn’t in the news tonight.
Für den Ideenklau ist oft nicht ein Produzent im fernen China, sondern der Konkurrent um die Ecke verantwortlich.
From Germany, I mean. It’s complicated.
German businesses are cooling on Russian investments amid anger over Russia’s role in the Ukrainian conflict, while simultaneously warming on another big country hit by Western sanctions: Iran.
According to Küntzel, German leaders have at least two other reasons for helping Iran defy the United States. The first is German resentment of defeat in the Second World War followed by foreign occupation, led by the US. The second reason is that Iran is one of the few, if not the only country, where Germans have never been looked at as “war criminals” because of Hitler.
It goes like this: An EU regulation forces Osram and the rest of the industry to shift from traditional light bulbs to light-emitting diodes. They are smaller, more energy-efficient, have longer lifespans than traditional bulbs (except that they don’t really), are very much more expensive and must therefore be forced down the consumer’s throat and, well, everybody here hates the damned things and wants their old light bulbs back.
The benevolent part? Now 8,000 Osram workers lose their jobs because of this.
„Durch die EU-Verordnung ist das traditionelle Glühbirnen-Massengeschäft von Osram weggebrochen. Dort war Osram führend.“
Well, for one thing, they know better than anyone that they live in the notorious German Neidgesellschaft.
And for another thing… The figures show that private wealth in Germany is more unevenly distributed than in any other country in the eurozone. While the richest 1% have personal wealth of just short of one million euros on average, a quarter of adult Germans have no wealth or even owe money.
ALDI schönen Sachen!
We all knew somehow that the Germans themselves could not be responsible for this. Now we know why.
Coal mining’s demise in Germany comes as the country is experiencing a resurgence in coal-fired power, one which the U.S. increasingly has helped supply. U.S. exports of power plant-grade coal to Germany have more than doubled since 2008.
“This is a classic case of political greenwashing.”
Germany is commemorating the first anniversary of US spying revelations by announcing that its spies will now start doing bad things, too. You know, like spying on friendly intelligence agencies who spy on them?
It may take them some time to get going, however, as German intelligence agencies have never ever considered doing such an awful thing before and don’t have much practical experience in this nasty business. German intelligence agencies are more like German social intelligence agencies, you see. They are more adept at effectively negotiating complex social relationships and environments. In the cutthroat international spying community, I mean.
In Zukunft soll die Spionageabwehr auch befreundete Staaten einschließen: Nach Informationen von SZ, NDR und WDR hat sich die Bundesregierung dazu entschlossen, auch amerikanische und britische Geheimdienste auf deutschem Boden zu observieren.
As if the recent discovery of the mysterious mystery crater in the Yamal Peninsula of Siberia had not been mysterious enough…
German scientists have now discovered a giant, 50-square-mile mystery crater near Hambach, Germany, as well.
The German mystery crater appears to have been at one time filled with unimaginable amounts of something called “brown coal,” one of the dirtiest fuels on earth, until this dirty substance was removed by a mysterious machine some 30 stories tall to then be burned at mysterious German coal-burning power stations, which is the real mystery, of course, as Germany continues to insist that it is the world’s leader when it comes to the development of renewable energy sources – and they’re still digging.
Since the late 1970s, giant earth-moving machines have been digging what German environmentalists decry as “Europe’s biggest hole” at Hambach in the Lower Rhine basin.
Observing Hermann 