I Got Your Demographics For You Right Here

December 18, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: Babies, Berlin, Birthrates, Demographics, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Immigrants, Immigration, Satire Leave a comment

No babies. And no immigrants, either.

Each year, the German government spends billions of euros in an effort to stop the country’s ticking demographic time bomb. By 2050, it is estimated that only 70 million people will be living in the country, down from today’s roughly 82 million. Without a major change in the birthrate or a mass influx of up to 24 million new immigrants, the population could soon begin shrinking, according to United Nations forecasts…

“…Germany underestimated the importance of a culture of welcome and overestimated the attractiveness as a country of immigration,” said Ulrich Kober of the Bertelsmann Foundation which commissioned the study released on Monday.

The country could pay a heavy price for its anti-immigration views as its older workforce dies out, concludes the Foundation. “Highly qualified people from non-EU countries actively avoid moving to Germany,” added Herr Kober.

Horse Du Bezahlt?

December 16, 2012 By Hermann Observer in High Art, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Animals, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Public Transportation, S-Bahn, Satire, Subways 3 Comments

What is the news story here, anyway?

That there is a pony taking the Berlin S-Bahn (it’s still better than walking, I guess), or that the pony didn’t pay?

Pony ohne Fahrschein in der Berliner S-Bahn unterwegs.

Because Talk Is Cheap

December 14, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Debate, Dialogue, Discussion, Günther Jauch, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Satire, Talk, Talk Shows 3 Comments

Why Germans like talking things through? Come on, give me a break.

“Being German means overdoing something for its own sake.”

PS: The only good Amerika is a rusty one.

Ronald McDonald Sees All

December 13, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Big Brother, Bombings, Bombs, Bonn, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, McDonald's, Paranoia, Satire, Surveillance, Terrorism, Terrorists Leave a comment

You can run, suspected terrorist types, but you can’t hide from the Golden Arches.

After discovering and destroying a “highly dangerous” explosive device at Bonn’s central train station, German police are now patting themselves on the back for having already made their first arrest in the case, all thanks to the dreaded (in Germany) security camera footage in use there.

No, not the footage from the security cameras aimed at the platform where the device was found – there was no coverage there – this footage came from the security cameras used at the central station’s US-Amerikan McDonald’s restaurant.

You know, die totale Überwachung (the total surveillance) state and all that? Germans don’t like that kind of stuff for some reason (that terrorist suspect dude doesn’t like it much either, I bet). It has to do with data privacy or Google Street View or something. I forget.

Would you like fries with that?

Zwar appellieren Datenschützer, bei der Überwachung öffentlichen Raumes die Verhältnismäßigkeit zu wahren. Doch etwa in Ballungszentren Großbritanniens hat man sich an flächendeckende Kamerapräsenz längst gewöhnt – und davon kann die Polizei häufig profitieren.

International Olympic Committee To Disqualify All East German Olympic Medals

December 12, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Cheating, Communism, Doping, East Germany, German, Germans, Germany, Lance Armstrong, Olympics, Sports, Stasi Leave a comment

Just kidding.

That the IOC seems determined to find a way to strip Armstrong’s time trial medal prompted Bill Mallon, one of the world’s leading Olympic historians, to ask in an email why the Olympic officials can’t do it for the medals won by doped East German athletes.

It’s a good question.

There actually is more documented evidence of East German doping than there is of Armstrong’s. The Stasi (East German secret police) files opened after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall gave names, dates, and dosages, implicating many East German Olympic medalists from 1972 through 1988.

Pleasant Christmas Smells Make Germans Sick

December 11, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Christmas, German, Germans, Germany, Health, Holidays, Humor, Psychology, Satire, Smells 2 Comments

And here you always figured that your lousy Chirstmas spirit had to do with the dreaded Verwandtenbesuch (visiting relatives). Well, it does. But recent research indicates that Christmas smells in abundance (and they always are this time of year) can also make Germans irritable and depressed.

That’s right. Aromatic candles, incense, advent wreaths with cinnamon and cloves, vanilla, anise, coriander, you name it. All these wonderfully smelly yule tide substances now pose a health threat to us (I mean you) and should be enjoyed in moderation only. I mean not be enjoyed in moderation only, of course.

Bah! Humbug already!

“Zuerst empfindet man den Duft noch als angenehm, aber bald schon kippt die Stimmung, man fühlt sich unwohl, leer oder gereizt.”

Duff Beer Exists Here

December 6, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Beer, Bier, Courts, Duff Beer, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Law, Satire, The Simpsons Leave a comment

Homer Simpson is a cartoon character, right? And Duff beer is imaginary.

But in Germany you can enjoy Duff beer for real, brewed by two separate companies even, if you want to, because Germany’s Federal Court of Justice (the nation’s highest court of law) said you could.

I don’t make this stuff up, people. This country’s a freakin’ fantasia land amusement park or something. For cryin’ out loud.

“In dieser Zeichentrickserie tritt ein Herr Homer Simpson auf, und dieser Herr trinkt”, erläuterte der Vorsitzende Richter Joachim Bornkamm in der mündlichen Verhandlung. Wobei Bornkamm betonte, es sei wohl “ein eher billiges Bier”.

We Ain’t No Fools

November 25, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Banking, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Politics, Satire, SPD, Switzerland, Tax evasion Leave a comment

It’s either all or nothing when you’re the SPD and it comes to German tax evaders with Swiss bank accounts. So, uh, we’ll take nothing.

It has to do with principle or something. Rejecting the deal that would have allowed Germans with “undeclared assets in Switzerland to avoid punishment by making a one-off payment” was absolutely essential for Germany’s opposition Social Democrats. Because, well, because why was that again? Oh yeah, now I remember. Because by passing the Swiss tax deal, the Genossen (comrades) explain, this would have made “honest taxpayers feel like fools.”

So now the honest taxpayers the SPD is so concerned about lose out on roughly 180-200bn euros that they will have come up with themselves (because the SPD would never in their wildest dreams ever even consider cutting spending – reducing taxes – on the other side of the equation). But at least they won’t have to feel like they’re fools while doing so.

“The German upper house has missed a major opportunity to reach a fair, optimum and sustainable solution for all parties to definitively settle the bilateral tax issues.”

“We’re going to prove that three public-sector owners can build a project like this,”

November 23, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Airports, BBI, BER International Airport, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Humor, Klaus Wowereit, Meglomania, Projects, Public Sector, Satire, Social Democrats, SPD 2 Comments

Wowereit said.

The investigation into the massive delays in opening Berlin’s new BER international airport have begun. Managers have been fired and architects have been sued — but what about the capital’s mayor, who has led the prestige project since 2001?

…Hochtief executives quickly learned that the project had changed since Wowereit had been put in charge. Now the walls were to be covered with expensive walnut veneer paneling. The roof was to be built in a futuristic, free-floating design. And the granite used for the floors at other major airports, like Hamburg and Düsseldorf, was no longer good enough. Berlin’s new terminal had to have expensive Jura limestone floors instead.

…Wowereit, a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), also recognized early on that the one person who doesn’t hold any share of the blame is Wowereit himself.

“I don’t see what concrete accusations should be leveled against the supervisory board,” says Wowereit.

German Blue Cards Going Like Hotcakes

November 18, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Blue Cards, Bureaucracy, German, Germans, Germany, Green Cards, Humor, Immigration, Labor, Satire, Skilled Workers, Xenophobia Leave a comment

A mass influx of skilled foreign laborers with “blue cards” to Germany is causing unexpected bureaucratic headaches and unsettling the already unsettled German xenophobic population at large.

So far, a grand total of 139 (that’s 1-3-9) foreign professionals have received the coveted card, camparable to the US-Amerikan “green card,” since its introduction in August.

“Wow. We had no idea just how bad people wanted to come here,” said one suprised immigration official. “This was way too easy. But how are we going to find jobs for all these folks now?”

Skilled employees from outside the European Union have apparantly been lining up everywhere and eating their achy breaky yearning little hearts out in earnest for this envied piece of blue plastic for quite some time now, partly due, it seems, to Germany’s celebrated image of being an overly bureaucratic and unwelcoming place for foreigners of all non-German kinds.

“German immigration law is still complicated and not very transparent for foreign skilled employees.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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