The new Elbphilharmonie!!
Instead of costing the planned 77 million euros it ended up costing Hamburg 800 million instead!!!
Breathtaking or something. Enjoy your status while you can, Hamburg. Just wait until the final cost for Berlin’s airport gets determined. If it ever does, I mean. We will CRUSH you!
Die Hansestädter sind froh, dass das Ding endlich fertig ist. Der Bau sollte 77 Millionen Euro kosten, am Ende waren es fast 800 Millionen.
That means traitor, or traitor of the people. And it’s actually a non-word or un-word of the year, not just a bad word of the year. Although it’s all three, I guess.
And if you look carefully at that photo you will see the feminine form of that word. Just in case you were wondering.
Each year, German linguists elect one word as the ‘Unwort’ (non-word) of the year. For 2016, the winner was a term meaning ‘traitor’ which has strong Nazi connotations.
Das Wort sei ein “Erbe von Diktaturen“, sagte sie. In der Begründung der Jury heißt es, Anhänger von Pegida, AfD und ähnlichen Initiativen würden den Begriff als Vorwurf gegenüber Politikern verwenden. Er sei undifferenziert und diffamierend und würde “das ernsthafte Gespräch und damit die für Demokratie notwendigen Diskussionen in der Gesellschaft” abwürgen.
Just like the way Russia doesn’t spy on US-Amerika, Iran doesn’t spy on Germany, either.
And when not doing so, Iranian spies don’t send PowerPoint presentations that incorrectly communicate biographical details about the target they are not targeting, either.
The exact motive for carrying out a possible attack on Robbe is still unclear. However, security agencies speculate that the Iranian government could have been preparing a retaliatory move against people closely linked to Israel should Israel carry out airstrikes against Iranian nuclear power plants.
The “risky roadshow” now rolling across Germany toward Poland could be, I dunno, an “embodiment of the United States’ commitment to deterring aggression and defending our European Allies and partners” or something.
And who could possibly want that?
Some 3,500 troops from the 4th Infantry Division in Fort Carson, Colorado, will join up with the equipment, which includes 87 tanks and 144 Bradley fighting vehicles, over the next two weeks… The new forces will gather first in Poland, then fan out across seven countries from Estonia to Bulgaria. A headquarters unit will be stationed in Germany.
Bedrohliche Musik, Bilder bewaffneter Milizionäre in der Ukraine, Karten eines sich nach Westen ausbreitenden Russlands: Die US-Armee in Europa hat auf ihrer Website ein Video über ihre Operation “Atlantic Resolve” (“Atlantische Entschlossenheit”) veröffentlicht: Die Botschaft: Nach der Besetzung der Krim und der Destabilisierung der Ostukraine könnte Russlands nächstes Opfer ein EU-Land sein, weshalb die US-Armee Europa zur Hilfe eilt.
That means deceptive packaging. And it’s not just in politics either, folks.
Lots of products get packaged deceptively over here, too. Take these chips, for instance. You get 25 grams less product for the same not-all-that-low price!
Can’t wait to see who wins “Mogelpackung 2016.” The competition never sleeps.
Zu dieser Wahl ruft die Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg auf, die das ganze Jahr über Beispiele für versteckte Preiserhöhungen gesammelt hat. Das Prinzip ist stets das gleiche: In einer Packung ist weniger drin, aber der Preis bleibt unverändert.
Or twenty-six to one, if you prefer.
Figures released Tuesday by the EU statistics office, Eurostat, show that around 420,000 asylum requests were processed in Germany in the first nine months of 2016 – more than in all other 27 EU countries combined.
Those are just the ones that have been processed, by the way. They’re kind of behind at the moment for some reason.
And always remember the essence of German policy-making: The last thing that Germany ever wants to do at any time ever like as in absolutely never is to go a Sonderweg (separate path).
In Deutschland sind in den ersten drei Quartalen 2016 einem Bericht zufolge mehr Asylanträge gestellt und bearbeitet worden als in den übrigen 27 EU-Staaten zusammen.
That’s short for North African men.
And the police in Cologne “did good” on New Year’s Eve by aggressively questioning, detaining and expelling the roughly thousand (1000) North African men who came to Cologne’s central station to try to raise hell with German women again, just like they had done the previous year (Why are these multiple offenders still in Germany, you ask? Practically everybody else in Germany is asking themselves that same question these days, too.).
But the police in Cologne “did bad” by using the word Nafris, German Green women tell us. Because, well, that’s short for North African men.
Get it? Me, neither.
Am HBF werden derzeit mehrere Hundert Nafris überprüft. Infos folgen.
Happy New Year already.
Police in Leipzig found two fingers somebody had blown off last night that nobody had claimed yet so they called Sherlock Holmes for help, I assume. He must have suggested that they call the emergency medical service number because when they did they were able to locate a patient matching the description perfectly. Missing two fingers, that is.
Somebody in Duisburg blew off three fingers. I haven’t got the missing finger count here in Berlin yet but there were fourteen serious incidents so I’m betting on a least a dozen. The main thing is that everybody has a good time, I say.
Alkohol und Schwarzpulver – eine fatale Mischung für einen Mann, der am Hauptbahnhof gefeiert hatte.
Silvester (New Year’s Eve) preparations are in full swing here in Germany, folks. So for any of you who might be enjoying the New Year’s Eve celebrations here tomorrow please keep these German words in mind.
Böller are firecrackers, usually big honking firecrackers, that Germans love blowing up for hours and hours and hours and hours on end, preferably blowing off a finger or two in the process. This is an ancient Germanic tradition that goes back to the Roman era. In Germania, Tacitus tells us, the Germanen often flipped off Roman soldiers during New Year’s Eve celebrations but, being drunk, were easily captured and then got their Stinkefinger cut off as punishment. After the Romans left new ways of removing fingers had to be developed.
Pfannkuchen or Berliner Pfannkuchen or just Berliner are pancakes, eaten in massive amounts around midnight. This tradition goes back to the 1950s when a Berlin housewife messed up an American doughnut recipe by forgetting to add the hole and putting way too much jam filling inside instead.
Pfefferspray is pepper spray or mace and is a new tradition that began shortly after last year’s Silvester celebrations, introduced in Cologne by another Kulturkreis (cultural circle), origins unknown.
In Sicherheit feiern – Mit Pfefferspray durch die Silvesternacht?
A group of six men, suspected of trying to set a homeless man on fire in a Berlin subway on Christmas Eve have turned themselves in to police. A seventh man, believed to be the main perpetrator, has been arrested.
What the Deutsche Welle refuses to tell you here, however, is that six of these men were from Syria and the seventh from Libya, most of them already “polizeilich bekannt” (known to the police). Here illegally (they won’t have any passports, either), known to the police and out and about to participate in lively cultural exchange activities? Didn’t we just have something like that in Berlin recently?
Wie die B.Z. weiter erfuhr, soll es sich bei sechs Verdächtigen um Syrer handeln. Ein weiterer Mann soll aus Libyen stammen.
Observing Hermann 