Ever Had A Windmill Shoved Down Your Throat?

How about thousands of them? And then you’re allowed to subsidize them all?

Windmill

You’d hat them too.

Germany’s Giant Windmills Are Wildly Unpopular – Local politics are a bigger problem for renewable energy growth than competition from fossil fuels.

Despite their surging popularity in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, the Greens did badly in last Sunday’s election in the German state of Thuringia, and the nationalists from the Alternative for Germany Party (AfD) did very well. An important reason is that the Greens support wind energy and the AfD militates against wind turbines. The giant windmills have grown so unpopular in neighboring communities that their construction in Germany has all but ground to a halt.

There are nearly 30,000 wind turbines in Germany, more than anywhere else in Europe. Only China and the U.S., both much bigger countries, have more. Germany gets 23.5% of its energy from wind this year; it’s the biggest source of renewable energy for the country. But in the first half of 2019, only 35 wind turbines were added — an 82% drop compared with the first six months of 2018. Last year was bad, too: Just 743 turbines were added, compared with 1,792 in 2017.

This Should Be Of No Surprise

The majority of Germans want Germany kicked out of NATO, too.

NATO

Majority of Germans want Turkey kicked out of NATO: survey – A new survey shows that 58% of Germans want Turkey expelled from NATO over the recent military offensive in Syria. There is even stronger German support for economic sanctions and export bans against the country.

Eine deutliche Mehrheit in Deutschland ist wegen des türkischen Einmarsches in Nordsyrien für einen Ausschluss der Türkei aus der Nato. In einer Umfrage des Meinungsforschungsinstituts YouGov im Auftrag der Deutschen Presse-Agentur sprachen sich 58 Prozent dafür aus und nur 18 Prozent dagegen.

German Of The Day: Grottenschlecht

That means abysmal, godawful, extremely bad, mega-bad and really sucky.

Merz

And after the CDU’s latest election disaster in Thuringia, Angela Merkel/Mini-Merkel adversary Friedrich Merz has grown the cojones (that’s Spanish so you’ll have to look that up somewhere else) needed to call Angela Merkel and her team’s “leadership” skills just that. Which, of course, they are. Somebody has to. Not that it’s going to make a difference or anything. But somebody has to.

German, European stability prospects unclear after Thuringia election – The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) led by Björn Höcke — whose local political faction is being investigated for extremism — doubled its vote share to place second with 23%. The CDU placed third with 22%, followed by the SPD with 8%. The environmentalist Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) both finished with about 5% of the vote, the minimum needed to reenter the regional parliament.

„Das gesamte Erscheinungsbild der deutschen Bundesregierung ist einfach grottenschlecht.”

Turn, Turn, Turn

Wind turbines turn. But for how much longer?

Wnd

To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
A time to buid up
A time to break down…

Germany’s wind power industry could shed about 40% of its jobs because of sliding interest among investors to build turbines on land, threatening a key driver of the nation’s ambitious clean energy targets.

Environmental rules are snagging license approval for scores of onshore projects, causing delays of as long as two years, according to a report by Psephos GmbH for Germany’s VDMA machine makers lobby group. As developers and investors shy away from auctions and wading through the thicket of red tape, construction of new parks is grinding to a halt and putting jobs in jeopardy.

Deutschland ist weltweit Vorreiter bei der Energiewende – dem Umstieg auf erneuerbare Energien. Doch ausgerechnet im wichtigsten Erneuerbaren-Bereich im deutschen Markt gibt es große Probleme.

You Are A Racist

‘You are a racist,’ Germans tell AfD politician.

AfD

Then they called him a bigot, a fascist and a Nazi, I’m sure. You know, the standard leftist/status quo “argumentation” used all over the world against anyone who does not agree with them about, well, anything.

Oddly, though, AfD gains expected in battle for political heart of Germany – Party whose leader is labelled a Nazi is on par with CDU going into Thuringia poll on Sunday.

So are all of these Germans in Thuringia racists, bigots, fascists and Nazis? Of course they’re not. Hmmm. Then these Germans must be voting for the “Alternative for Germany” party for some other reason. Why don’t we ask the “established” parties that have been in power for years and years and years in Germany what they think the reason could be.

“We have been left behind.”

If Only US-Amerika Had A Rate That Low

Of Antisemitism, I mean. Only one in four? Damn. Seriously, folks. That’s not bad at all.

Anti-Semitism

One in four Germans hold anti-Semitic beliefs, study finds – More than a quarter of Germans surveyed said they agreed with anti-Semitic statements, including that Jews have “too much power over the economy.” Over 40% said they thought Jews “talk about the Holocaust too much.”

Jeder vierte Deutsche hegt laut einer neuen Studie antisemitische Gedanken.

German Of The Day: Hubraum

That means engine displacement or capacity. Or horsepower, if you prefer. You know, like Fridays for Horsepower?

Hubraum

The German Motorists Who Oppose Greta Thunberg – Motorists in Germany are banding together to oppose climate activists’ calls to limit the use of cars. Politicians are taking them seriously because, unlike the Fridays for Future movement and its leader Greta Thunberg, most members of the Fridays for Horsepower group can vote.

“Fridays for Horsepower is a logical and reasonable reaction to the ideological madness of the environmental activists.”

“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

It can’t even stay parked in Germany.

Gold

Damn. A car like this doesn’t honk. It blings.

A golden car was pulled over by police on Sunday as it was “too bright.” Police were concerned that the car would dazzle other drivers in the western German city of Düsseldorf.

A police spokesman said the potentially dangerous “dazzling effect” was why the car had been pulled over.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Or Stalinallee, if your prefer.

Egon Krenz

Inexplicably, East Germany’s last communist boss thinks that the night the Berlin Wall came down (almost thirty years ago) “was the worst night of my life.

Happily for him, it is also something that he “wouldn’t want to experience ever again” because, well, he won’t.

Germany Has Some Of The Strictest Gun Control Laws In The World

And they are designed to keep the crazy criminal types here from harming the unarmed innocents around them.

Halle

Streaming live from a camera mounted on his helmet, a gunman pushed on the doors of a synagogue, fired several shots at a lock on the door, stuck an explosive in a door jam and lit it.

But he couldn’t get in.

The fact that the door held likely spared the lives of the dozens of people inside the synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

Police say the gunman killed two people Wednesday in the eastern German town of Halle — one directly outside the synagogue, and one at a nearby kebab shop. Police have arrested the suspected gunman.