All The Secret Code That’s Fit To Print

Forget about the lying press. Now some German media have taken it to a new level and publish their news reports using a secret code. Everybody here knows the code, however, so it’s not much of a secret. But still.

250

Here’s an example: 250 “people” obstruct a police operation in Duisburg. The cops in Duisburg wanted to check the papers of some guy involved in a traffic violation. The situation escalated, however, ending up with a gang of 250 “people” assembling and interfering with this police action.

Let me decode that for you: Germans don’t assemble in groups like that to interfere with cops investigating some traffic violation. Ergo, other people who now live in Germany do. Not one word can be found in that article indicating that, of course, but your everyday Germans on the street have become such experienced code breakers that they know the deal as soon as they read the headline. Nobody’s lying though, see?

Etwa 250 Menschen haben der Polizei zufolge eine Verkehrskontrolle gestört.

World’s Largest Publicly Funded Broadcaster Squeamish About Showing Documentary On Antisemitism

Because, well, that would be too unpleasant for the public being made to do the broadcaster’s  forced funding to have to face.

Israel

Germany’s state-run television channel ARD recently decided not to air a documentary it had itself commissioned concerning the latest outbreak of antisemitism in Europe and the Middle East because the people doing the film apparently did this job much too well (after enough noise was made about this decision the ARD had to broadcast it anyway).

This could trouble viewers in a country where at least 40% of its citizens hold anti-Israel, antisemitic views. Or so the reasoning must be. ARD documentaries propagating negative views about Israel get aired here all the time, however. This having to do with balanced journalism or something. Or so the reasoning must be.

Anti-Zionism is not a legitimate political position, but rather a movement against the Jewish and democratic state. It is Antisemitism 2.0.

PS: Meanwhile… The latest boycott Israel campaign from BDS seems to be making great strides forward here in Berlin. It is unclear at this point whether the ARD will be commissioning a documentary about this campaign or not.

This Will Never Work Here

A neighborhood social network called Nextdoor where local residents (some call the neighbors) actually communicate with each other? Like, in a friendly way? In Germany?

Nextdoor

You’re wasting your time, folks. Germans hate their neighbors and are in a constant state of warfare with them. I know you think I’m joking here but I’m sad to say I’m not. Better luck next time. And keep an eye on your apple tree, pall. It’s about to grow over my side of the garden fence.

Oddity 367. Germans don’t naturally get along with their neighbors very well. Suing neighbors is not at all uncommon here. One of the reasons for this is that Germans like to mark off their territory. Disputes about territorial claims are inevitable. That’s why you often see people’s back yards completely fenced off or hedged in like small fortresses. Of course another reason for these disputes is that Germans just like to argue and are very litigious in general.

“Wenn du deinen Hund verlierst, können dir Online-Freunde ihr Mitgefühl zeigen, aber deine Nachbarn helfen dir bei der Suche.”

Massive Logistical Move Could, Should And Will Take Months

Transferring six (6) aircraft from Turkey halfway around the world to Jordan is anything but an easy logistical problem to solve.

War

Not if you are the German army, it isn’t. A move of this magnitude has to be carefully planned and cautiously implemented (not to mention cautiously planned and carefully implemented), otherwise something could go wrong because, well, only one or two of these damned planes actually fly.

And this is war, after all.

Last month, Ankara blocked a German parliamentary delegation from visiting Bundeswehr troops at the base, marking the second time that Turkey had done so. Turkish officials said their decision was a response to Germany granting asylum to Turkish military personnel accused of participating in a failed coup last year – a move that reportedly enraged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

PS: Brought to you by the same people who gave us The Flight of the Phoenix?

European Gazprom Lobby Outraged By US Senate Bill

A US Senate bill aimed at toughening sanctions on Russia has been slammed by leading members of the European Gazprom lobby as a dirty American trick to promote bad American liquefied petroleum gas and squeeze out good Russian gas from the European market.

Gazprom

The two outraged Gazprom spokespersons, German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) and German chancellor Angela Merkel, reminded the Americans that “Europe’s energy supply is a matter for Germany, that is, Europe to decide and not for the United States of America! We, as Germans, would never put our own economic interests before those of other countries or continents so like stop doing it immediately already. Did I just say we, as Germans? I meant we, as Europeans, of course.”

Ex-Kanzler Gerhard Schröder (SPD) leitet den Verwaltungsrat des Unternehmens Nord Stream II, das dem russischen Energiekonzern Gazprom gehört. Kürzlich erst hatten sich Gabriel, Schröder und der russische Präsident Wladimir Putin am Rande des russischen internationalen Wirtschaftsforums in St. Petersburg getroffen. Schröder hatte auf dem Forum für den Bau der Nordstream-Pipeline geworben.

 

More Tough Sentencing In Germany

The state court in Berlin convicted a group of young refugees from Syria and Libya on Tuesday who attempted to set fire to a sleeping homeless man at a subway station on Christmas last year. The oldest of the group, a 21-year-old Syrian man, was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.

Crime

I guess the judges were being lenient like in that recent case in Cottbus. In Muslim countries it’s apparently OK to light people on fire so that needed to be taken into consideration, I assume.

But seriously, if were up to me and I were a judge here in Berlin I’d lock them up in the David Hasselhoff Museum and throw away the key.

German Cast As Bad Guy In Hollywood Movie

The wonders never cease with this new Wonder Woman flick. For the first time ever, as far as I am aware of, a German has been cast as the bad guy. And here for a while I was worried that Hollywood was running out of fresh, new ideas and stuff.

Ludendorff

Worse still, this bad guy is based on a real German, General Ludendorff himself (I think it’s the guy on the left). He was a general, like I said, in the Imperial German Army who was apparently “ruthless, ambitious, and willing to do whatever it takes to win the war for Germany.” A real loser, in other words. I’m sitting on the edge of my seat already, folks. Do you think they might actually let them win this time?

By the way, Wonder Woman is also based on a real woman. But only very loosely.

The real Ludendorff has been credited for coining the “stab in the back” myth. After World War I, right-wing Germans believed that the Germans didn’t lose the war on the battlefield, but instead that they lost the war because other Germans betrayed them on the homefront

German Of The Day: Schleierfahndung

“Veiled searches” probably aren’t what you think they are. Women wearing veils aren’t randomly being searched here (although the idea isn’t half bad).

Schleierfahndung

It means stop and search practices or dragnet controls – searches made without having a concrete suspicion.

Bavaria is pushing hard for more of these at the moment, all over the country. Federal minister of the interior Thomas de Maizière is all for it, too. And the usual cry of outrage hält sich in Grenzen (is being kept within bounds, within the border). Maybe because this is a country that thinks it doesn’t need to have a border?

Diese verdachtsunabhängigen Polizeikontrollen sind bislang auf einen 30-Kilometer-Gürtel hinter den Bundesgrenzen beschränkt, sollten laut Herrmann aber auch in der Nähe von Flughäfen, Bahnhöfen und Rastplätzen möglich sein.

PS: Not that stop and search would do any good here in Germany anyway. The courts here don’t cooperate. Check out the judgement reached be a court in Cottbus last week: A Muslim asylum seeker stabs his wife 19 times, cuts her throat and throws her out the window because he thinks she’s been sleeping around (the mother of his five children). He gets off with manslaughter. That means he’ll be out in half the time he would be out in if convicted of murder (there is no life sentence in Germany). The court’s reasoning? In the Muslim world it’s apparently OK to kill your wife if she commits adultery so the man had to be judged with a different set of standards. He gets a discount, in other words. For being a Muslim. This was a court in Germany. Today. Coming to your town soon.

 

Help Me Man I’m Sick

Ever feel a clammy unease and growing sense of disorientation when living in a particular German city while unsure about what it is you are actually experiencing except that nervous, slippery hold on reality during what is in effect a captivity drama much too subtly disquieting to be called a life?

Yup. Then you’ve got Berlin Syndrome, too. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. Or, better yet, don’t call me. Like, at all. I’m being held captive and can’t come to the phone.

Der beklemmende Hype.

Brother Of Safia S. Now Islamist Criminal, Too

And his name is Brother S.

Safia

Sorry, I mean Saleh S. And don’t even think of telling me that you don’t know who Safia S. is cause I know you do. But now her brother, Saleh S., has been given seven years of Jugendstrafe (youth custody) for carrying out an Islamist-motivated arson attack. In Germany, people. That means he could literally spend months in prison.

Mother S. and Father S. could not be reached for comment. Nor could Cousin S. (no relation to Cousin Itt). Nor could the Dog S. of the Great Aunt S. of the Neighbor Across The Street S. Okay, S. reicht (that’s enough) already!

Das Landgericht der Stadt hat Saleh S. nun wegen versuchten Mordes in sieben Fällen schuldig gesprochen. Dem Gericht zufolge hat der junge Mann gestanden, am 5. Februar 2016 aus islamistischen Motiven zwei Molotow-Cocktails in den Haupteingang eines Einkaufszentrums in Hannover geworfen zu haben.

PS: Talk about your Fahrenheit 351 (I know, it’s actually Fahrenheit 451). There are currently 351 Islamists with warrants out for their arrests being searched for by police in Germany. It is unclear, however, how many of them are members of the S. family.