Reality Can Be A Bitch Like That

March 19, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Climate, Climate Change, CO2, CO2 Emissions, Coal Energy, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Nuclear energy, Renewable energy Leave a comment

After Missing Emissions Targets, Germany Creates Climate Watchdog.

Brilliant, really. First you shut down all your nuclear power plants, build more coal-firing power plants to compensate for them (renewable energy isn’t enough here for some odd reason) and then fail to meet the ridiculously ambitious emissions reduction goals you have set.

Then, once you’ve finally come clean about not being able to come clean, you “set up a ‘climate cabinet’ to coordinate emissions reduction efforts and ensure politicians (you, that is) keep their promises.”

I thought Kafka was dead. Come on, now. Did he write this?

Environment minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) detailed the plan to create a ministerial group to German newspaper Tageszeitung on Saturday, saying it would ensure that ideas to lower the country’s emissions don’t slip through the cracks.

On Course, Of Course

March 18, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Armies, Bundeswehr, Defense, Defense Spending, German, Germans, Germany, NATO Leave a comment

Don’t anyone ever tell you that Germans aren’t reliable.

As noted yesterday, the equipment used by the German army is still as inadequate as ever, despite repeated promises by the German defense minister to make improvements.

And now, despite claims by the German government to one day reach the official NATO target of 2 per cent GDP on defense spending it agreed to years ago, it won’t even be able to make the 1.5 percent it set for itself by 2024. This is “round,” as the Germans say. It all fits like a glove.

Germany is on course to miss its self-declared target for defence spending in a development that threatens to trigger a new row with the US and raises further questions over Berlin’s military contribution to Nato.

The government of Angela Merkel agreed last year to raise the German military budget to 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2024 — a marked increase but still short of the official Nato target of 2 per cent.

But the 1.5 per cent target is now under threat after Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat (SPD) finance minister, rebuffed plans for an ambitious increase in military spending in the years ahead, citing a worsening economic outlook.

Secret Report Not Much Of A Secret

March 17, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Bundeswehr, Defense, Defense Spending, German, Germans, Germany, NATO, Politics, Sexism, Women Leave a comment

It was just leaked, as secret reports so often are, and now it’s come out that – get this – the Bundeswehr’s equipment is still inadequate.

Yawn. Been there, done that. Top inadequacies this time? Of the Bundeswehr’s 53 Tiger combat helicopters only 11.6 of them are operational (they would never get me in that .6 one). With the NH90 transport helicopter it’s 17.5 from 71 and only 15.9 of the 71 CH-53 transport helicopters are ready for combat.

But not to worry (as if anybody is). German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen promised a “turnaround” in the Bundeswehr’s equipment department – a year or two or three ago. Other defense menisters would have been fired for this long ago, of course, but 1) she’s a girl and 2) she’s one of Angie Merkel’s bosom buddies.

Die Ausstattung der Bundeswehr ist laut einem Zeitungsbericht weiterhin mangelhaft. Das zeige der neueste, als geheim eingestufte “Bericht zur Materiallage der Hauptwaffensysteme der Bundeswehr”, schreibt die “Welt am Sonntag”.

Political Paralysis?

March 13, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Angela Merkel, Automobiles, China, Defense, Donald Trump, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Tariffs, Trade, Trade Wars, USA Leave a comment

That’s my thing now. That’s what I do.

On the one hand, I could screw it up with this side. On the other hand, I could screw this up over here first. Decisions, decisions…

The global order that underpins German prosperity is unraveling, and Angela Merkel doesn’t know what to do. President Donald Trump’s America First policy is forcing Germany to make an impossible choice between the U.S. and China — pitting the force behind the country’s modern economic success against the key to its future growth…

For decades, the country profited from an international trading system run by the West and backed up by the military might of the U.S. The government just got out of the way and watched exports roll. Those days are over…

“Germany is caught up in a dilemma of changing trade patterns and doesn’t know how to react.”

Trump hin oder her – die USA bleiben Deutschlands wichtigster Absatzmarkt.

Ali B. Vs. Susanna F.

March 12, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Angela Merkel, Asylum Seekers, Crime, German, Germans, Germany, Migrants, Murder, Rape, Refugees, Trials, Wiesbaden Leave a comment

Susanna F already lost before the trial began.

An Iraqi man went on trial in Germany on Tuesday (Mar 12) accused of the rape and murder of a teenage girl that inflamed anti-immigrant tensions amid a mass influx of asylum seekers.

The accused, Ali Bashar, 22, left Germany for northern Iraq shortly after the May 2018 crime but was arrested and brought back in a mission joined personally by Germany’s federal police chief.

“Everything just went black,” he says. Yes, it did. Right around 2015. This is all so unnecessary. Shouldn’t Angela Merkel be called to the witness stand for more clarification?

Ali B. gesteht Tötung von Susanna F.

German Of The Day: Unsinn

March 10, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Academia, Academics, Gender, Gender-Neutral, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Political correctness, Thought Control, Universities Leave a comment

That means nonsense.

German academics and authors call for end to ‘gender nonsense‘ – .Open letter hits back at demand for more gender-neutral nouns.

A group of German authors, comedians and academics have added fuel to the flames of an increasingly bad-tempered culture war over language bias by calling for a fightback against “ridiculous linguistic constructions” designed to make German more gender-neutral.

“And no one has been bothered by the fact that everything feminine has for 1,000 years been based on the [neuter] word das Weib.”

Why Not?

March 8, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Angela Merkel, CDU, Chancellor, Gender, International Women's Day, Migrants, Migration, Muslims, Political Parties, Politicians, Women Leave a comment

She would certainly take uncontrolled migration more seriously than the current chancellor does.

A Muslim as German chancellor? CDU leader slammed for saying ‘why not’

The party of Chancellor Angela Merkel has been roiled by a debate about whether a Muslim could lead the CDU and one day become chancellor. One lawmaker couldn’t believe anyone would even suggest such a thing.

“Why not, if they’re a good politician, and they represent our values and our political views?”

PS: Happy International Women’s Day!

German Of The Day: Gaga

March 7, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings Tags: Gender, Gender-inclusive Language, German, Germans, Germany, International Women's Day, Language, Spelling Leave a comment

That means gaga.

And that’s what this lady, State Secretary Dorothee Bär (CSU), thinks about the new spelling rules for gender-inclusive language now proposed for German. This is because these spelling rules are gaga, of course, just like everything else having to do with today’s gender-fluid non-binary macro-trend terrorist fashion craze. It’s just as gaga as not being allowed to call it gaga, which she did anyway. And thanks so much for that, ma’am.

She says it “rapes and butchers” the German language, which, of course, it does. But I’m not sure she understands that that is precisely the intention. That is the intention, isn’t it? Just look what it’s doing to our language.

One little New German spelling example: What used to be a department head – Abteilungsleiter (male) or Abteilungsleiterin (female) – will now be an Abteilungsleiter*innen. I’m not sure how the * pronounced but what’s that matter at this point?

“Ich finde das alles total gaga, sowohl das Binnen-I als auch das Gender-Sternchen.”

We Need Professional Counseling

March 6, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: German, German-American Relations, Germans, Germany, Optimism, Pessimism, Polls, Studies, Surveys, USA 1 Comment

Not. Same old same old, if you ask me: Germans see ties worsening as Americans remain positive.

In the U.S., seven-in-ten say that relations with Germany are good, a sentiment that has not changed much in the past year. Germans, on the other hand, are much more negative: 73% say that relations with the U.S. are bad, a 17-percentage-point increase since 2017.

Americans want more cooperation with Germany, but Germans don’t reciprocate.

But The Next Time ISIS Starts A War…

March 5, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Citizenship, Dual-Citizenship, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Grand Coalition, ISIS, Laws, Legislation, Syria, Terror, Terrorists 1 Comment

Watch out! Dual-nationals who fight for them will lose their German citizenship!

This is how Germany kind of sort of works. It’s always too little, too late and heartfelt half-ass. And then everybody congratulates one another for having reached a compromise. It would be funny as hell if it weren’t so sad.

Germany is to introduce new legislation to remove citizenship from dual-nationals who fight for the self-styled Islamic State (IS) and other terrorist groups.

To date, German nationals could only have their citizenship stripped if they joined foreign armed forces without the government’s permission. Now the German government has decided to extend the legislation to cover German citizens who travel to fight on behalf of a terror militia.

Meanwhile, in Syria… “The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 Isis fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial. The Caliphate is ready to fall. The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them.”

Needless to say, the Germans don’t want them. Nor do they wish to try them. Is Guantanamo still in operation?

So ein Sinnlos-Gesetz kann sich wirklich nur die GroKo ausdenken.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Hurt Feelings