Germany Prepares for No-Deal Brexit to Avert Financial Turmoil
Tick-tock, tick-tock… Wake up and smell the tea, people.
“The only thing I can tell citizens in Germany is that we’re working hard on ensuring an orderly Brexit and that, in parallel, we’re preparing for the eventuality that it won’t be orderly.”
Mays bitterer Sieg – Brexit-Hardliner forderten Theresa May heraus – in einer Vertrauensabstimmung hat sich die Tory-Chefin durchgesetzt. Doch ein Befreiungsschlag gelingt ihr nicht.
You know, Germans with their big families and all?
And their extended families? And those that extend from there? Like the Corleones? Only they’re actually Lebanese?
Criminal Arab clans are really big these days in Germany. Literally. So that’s why hundreds of German cops make sure to attend weddings and funerals with thousands of guests whenever “The Godfather of Berlin” or “El Presidente” and their crews get together for social events of this nature. Like yesterday in Mülheim. It helps keep the dialogue between the various Parallelgesellschaften (parallel societies) going or something.
Mahmoud Al-Zein ist kein Geringerer als der „Pate von Berlin“, eine der schillerndsten Figuren der arabischen Clans in Deutschland.
I know you planned it!
Conspiracy theory of the week: The CDU sabotaged Friedrich Merz’s chances for winning the election for party chairman against Mini-Merkel on Friday by turning down his microphone during his speech. I believe it. Of course, I also believe that interdimensional shapeshifting lizards are calling all the shots here on Planet Earth from a secret bunker complex somewhere under the polar ice cap, thus causing the ice there to melt. But still.
Wirre Gerüchte: Falsches Spiel mit Merz? CDU soll sein Mikro absichtlich gedimmt haben.
Meet Mini-Me. As in Mini-Merkel. Same as the old boss. Only mini-er.
That’s just what this country needs. More of the same. But if that’s what Dr. Evil wants, that’s what Dr. Evil gets. Whoopee or something.
Merkel, 64, later handed the baton to a successor at the party congress in Hamburg.
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who was widely seen as the chancellor’s favorite and has been branded a “mini-Merkel” by some media outlets, was elected as her replacement on Friday.
Kramp-Karrenbauer — who often goes by her initials AKK — got about 52 percent of the vote in in a run-off with Friedrich Merz, a former lawmaker who left politics to work as a corporate lawyer.
Mini-Me? Mini-Me? For God’s sake would someone put a fricken bell on her or something.
Only this Khan’s name is Wolfgang.
Maybe this Friedrich Merz has a chance of becoming head of the Christian Democrats (CDU) this Friday after all. Wolfgang Schäuble, the seventy-six-year-old CDU Urgestein (bedrock) who should have/would have been chancellor, is supporting Merz wholeheartedly. He is doing this out of conviction, of course, but he also has an ax to grind with Empress Merkel Herself (who wants Mini-Merkel to take over for her – and can’t stand Merz). Like Helmut Kohl before her, her rise to power came with a major political setback for Schäuble. Now it’s payback time. Better late than never.
“Of course! We are one big, happy fleet! Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold?”
Weil er Kanzler nicht werden konnte, will er jetzt, am Ende eines schier unglaublichen Berufslebens, wenigstens Kanzlermacher sein. Er nutzt, 76-jährig, seine wohl letzte Gelegenheit, auf die Geschichte der CDU und der Bundesrepublik entscheidenden Einfluss zu nehmen – und damit zugleich für die politische Zurücksetzung, die er erst von Kohl und dann von Merkel erfahren hat, Genugtuung zu finden.
That means nothing works. Or how about “failed State?” That means failed state. You know, like the failed city-state of Berlin?
When the prominent Mayor of Tübingen Boris Palmer (Greens) has to come to Berlin for business he says to himself “Watch out, you are now leaving the functioning part of Germany.” He just can’t deal with the mix of crime, drug dealing and bitter poverty confronting him here on the street. “I don’t want to have these conditions in Tübingen,” he says.
Don’t worry. You never will. And you’re right, of course. Nothing works here in Berlin. But isn’t that the point? Oddly, for whatever the reason (decades of SPD-Green-Left Party mismanagement at city hall? Half the population being on welfare?) nobody in Berlin seems to care. And sheesh. In all fairness, this guy has clearly never been to an American city.
Berlin, ein „failed State“? Irgendwie schon, so Tübingens Oberbürgermeister Boris Palmer. Die Mischung aus Kriminalität, Drogenhandel und bitterer Armut auf der Straße verunsichere ihn als Baden-Württemberger nachhaltig.
In Germany. In the winter.
Thousands of people marched Saturday in Berlin to demand that Germany speed up its exit from coal-fired power plants, a day before the opening of a U.N. climate summit in neighboring Poland.
“Stop Coal!” is the rallying call today. “Stop nuclear power!” was yesterday. The Germans have already shut down their nuclear power industry due to an earthquake in Japan. Don’t ask.
Some of these demonstrators have clearly thought all of this through, however. That’s why they’re wearing those polar bear suits. “Somebody turn on the freakin’ heat already!” Will by the rallying cry of the future.
“The future is coal-free.”
I read half a dozen times today that no, it wasn’t sabotage that caused a forced landing of Angela Merkel’s plane on its way to the G20 in Argentina shortly after leaving Berlin.
Of course it wasn’t sabotage. It was a Bundeswehr plane, folks. That’s all you need to know. What’s interesting is how the first thing everyone thinks is that it could have, might have, must have been sabotage. Angie, maybe it really is time for you to go.
The plane’s communications system went down and the crew had to use a satellite phone to contact air traffic controllers, Germany’s Spiegel website reported. The problem is thought to have been with an electronic distribution box, which controls both the radio and discharge of aviation fuel.
The German air force denied suggestions that the plane’s electronics could have been sabotaged. “There’s is absolutely no indication of a criminal background,” a spokesman said.
Save the wolves? So they can attack us at… cemeteries?
These romantic visions of nature everybody fosters these days are all fine and good, I guess, but sometimes they can get a little creepy.
The German news agency dpa reported Wednesday that a 55-year-old man was working on the cemetery in the village of Steinfeld in Lower Saxony on Monday when he felt something biting his hand from behind. When he turned around, he saw a wolf attacking him and three other wolves watching from a distance. He managed to free himself from the wolf’s bite and shooed all the animals away. Then he went to see a doctor, who bandaged his injured hand.
Man oh man. This time there will definitely be consequences.
Auf einem Friedhof in Niedersachsen hat offenbar ein Wolf am Dienstag einen Menschen angegriffen. Nach Polizeiangaben soll das Tier den 55-jährigen Gemeindemitarbeiter in den linken Unterarm gebissen haben.
Even if you’re, well, a German cop-to-be in Berlin.
And the English language is at fault. Sort of.
Germany’s cops are bombarded with countless criticisms today, but this one definitely stands out – it emerged that police cadets in Berlin, many of whom have immigrant backgrounds (some 40 percent), have difficulty using… the German language.
Many cadets attending Berlin’s police academy have “fundamental difficulties” writing in German without spelling or punctuation errors, revealed Tanja Knapp, the newly appointed head of the institution. She said it was really disappointing to learn that these cadets are unable to produce written texts. And since after every stakeout or chase you have to write a report, that’s discouraging news.
Part of the problem is that too much emphasis is placed on learning English, Knapp said. Over the years, Berlin has evolved into a truly international city where English is sometimes spoken more frequently than German.
“Of course, it makes sense to be able to speak English to the capital’s many tourists,” Knapp said. “But if the basic required level of German is too low, then the focus should be on German.”
Berlins Polizeischüler sollen künftig weniger Englisch- und dafür mehr Deutschunterricht erhalten. Es gebe bei vielen Polizei-Azubis „grundsätzliche Schwierigkeiten“ mit der Sprache.
Observing Hermann 