North, south. Inferiority, superiority. It’s all the same to me.
Germans export more to their European partners than they consume, benefiting from this asymmetrical situation even as they expect everyone else to be exporters and savers like them.
Category Archives: Home Cooking
You Gotta Have Swine
And the Germans didn’t have much swine last night when Italy trounced them in the Euro 2012 semi-finals 2:1.
Having pig (Schwein haben) means to have a stroke of luck, you see. And Emma the pig up there (no relation to Arnold Ziffel) knew it all along, if you can beleive that. Which I don’t.
In the race to emulate Paul the Octopus’ World Cup predicting perfection of two years ago, Emma the Mangalitsa pig from Freiburg, Germany, vaulted into sole possession of the lead on Thursday evening.
Circumcision Decision Causing Division
And may need a revision.
Leaders of Germany’s Jewish and Muslim communities have criticized a court ruling they fear could make circumcision a punishable offense in the country.
Talk about having short vision.
German courts need more tight supervision.
There was no provision for all the derision now caused by that little incision.
“This is an unprecedented and dramatic intrusion on the right to self-determination of religious communities.”
Are We Having A European Lifestyle Yet?
Is this the end of “the European way of life” as we know it?
European leaders have been muddling through instead of properly tackling the debt crisis. Now it threatens the very foundations of the European Union and could destroy a lifestyle that millions of Europeans take for granted.
Funny. I thought taking things for granted was what the European lifestyle was all about.
“We need fiscal discipline because we have a debt problem… No euro bonds as long as I live.”
Our Debt Still Doesn’t Stink
German government debt keeps climbing relentlessly higher and reached an all-time high during the first three months of this year. The federal, state and local governments then reached a debt to the tune of 2 trillion euros.
That was 2.1 percent or 42.3 billion euros higher (deeper?) than in the previous year’s quarter, reported the Federal Office of Statistics in Wiesbaden on Monday.
Now if only Greece and Co. could learn to control their government spending like the Germans do. Oh, wait. They already have. Or do. Or whatever.
Deutschlands Staatsschulden auf Rekordhoch gestiegen
More Naked Art
Asking for naked volunteers in Germany is kind of like asking if anybody is interested in having some Freibier (free beer). Especially when the nakedness has to do with uplifting Kunst and culture and crap like that. Not to mention, heaven forbid, Richard Wagner himself.
That’s why American photographer Spencer Tunick shamelessly exploited this German schamelessness and painted a whole heap of naked Germans red and gold for his art installation interpretation thingy of scenes from the opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen.”
Art for art’s sake or something. Let’s get nekkid. Boy, I’m arted out for this week. EntARTet, so-to-speak.
Tunick was invited to create the work by the Bavarian State Opera.
I Need Your Clothes, Your Boots And Your Motorcycle
Is it termination time yet? For the booming German economy, I mean?
The Spiegel says: German manufacturing activity has hit a three-year low and export orders have also seen a big drop. This data suggests that the crisis is starting to hit the previously robust German economy.
Hasta la vista, baby? Maybe.
Forest Boy Asked To Live In Forest Again
This time for real, though.
Berlin officials say the 20-year-old Dutchman who posed as a “forest boy” caused some $25,000 in unnecessary public expenditure during his nine-month hoax and are so pissed off about it that they are booting him out of the cushy public housing scam he had going.
“This was welfare fraud,” said one irrate municipal official. “Which is perfectly normal here, of course, but not when it’s such a big deal in the news like this. It makes us look like, I dunno, fools or something. So I’d say it’s time to hit the road, Ray. And never come back no more.”
The man arrived in Berlin in September, speaking English and claiming to be a 17-year-old teenager named Ray who had lived in forests with his father for five years, sleeping in caves or a tent, after his mother died in a car crash.
No Flag Waving Here
Flag waving still leaves a bad taste in many a German mouth, I guess. Especially if the flag in question is 220 square meters in size.
EM 2012 nor not, Berlin officials have refused to let a Turkish store owner mount a huge German flag above his storefront in Neukölln. Ordnung muß sein (order must prevail) again already. “It was not connected properly and covered up a few windows.”
Go Germany!
“Die Entscheidung lag im Ermessen der Beamten vor Ort.”
“Smile and Wave”
What a perfect title for a graphic novel about the Bundeswehr‘s mission in Afghanistan.
German illustrator Arne Jysch has completed his first graphic novel. Congratulations. I’m sure it’s fantasy comic material at it’s finest (in some scenes German soldiers are actually seen doing some fighting, for instance).
“The advantage of fiction is that you can combine real experiences that different people have had (in other armies?) and mix them all up,” he explains.
Jysch has never been to Afghanistan.
PS: I read recently that German soldiers in Afghanistan, being frustrated about having to be German soldiers in Afghanistan, have their own definition for ISAF: I saw Americans fighting.
Observing Hermann 