First We Take Leipzig, Then We Take Berlin

That didn’t take long. After planning to introduce “Herr Professorin” or Mr. Madame Professor at the University of Leipzig for both men and women professors, the FU Berlin is now thinking about doing the same.

Professorin

Did Delta House dump some LSD in the faculty water cooler over here or something?

“All are equal in Leipzig. All women, that is.”

In Leipzig sind jetzt alle gleich, nämlich Frauen. Professoren gibt’s nicht mehr, nur noch Professorinnen, gemeint bleiben damit natürlich auch noch die männlichen Akademiker, die jedoch nur noch in einer Fußnote erwähnt werden.

Emasculation 101

If you have your doubts and worries about where your language is going in matters of political correctness, just be glad that you don’t speak German.

Professorin

Squirming as everyone does these days to find a way to neuter anything and everything that can be neutered because, well, I’m still not quite sure why that is… The University of Leipzig has now made a very important contribution to this valiant endeavor, I think.

In German, calling a man a Professor and a woman a Professorin simply isn’t as geschlechtsneutral (gender-free) as it needs to be in this complex time we live in, it seems. That’s why the head smart folks what’s in charge of proper correct-type language usage here have decided to simply matters drastically. From now on Leipzig professors of either sex will be referred to as “Herr Professorin” or Mr. Madame Professor.

I know, I know. You think that I’m pulling your leg and that this is some kind of a prank or a punk or whatever it is they call it these days, but it isn’t. Honest. It’s here. We’ve come a way long way baby. And this is where we are now.

Mit “Professorin” können somit künftig auch Männer gemeint sein, “Dozentinnen” umfasst sowohl männliche als weibliche Personen.

Germans Shocked To Learn That American Drones Are Not Being Used To Fight Graffiti

While Germans are in the process of introducing small drones to patrol railyards by night in a bid to fight graffiti spraying terrorists, many were shocked to learn that American drones (piloted by soldiers stationed in Stuttgart and Ramstein) are being used to fight terrorists of another caliber in Somalia.

Drones

This puts Germans in a moral dilemma (something they are not at all accustomed to), because this yucky business of using drones to kill people who are planning to kill you (as in you Americans) is wrong because we (as in you Americans) are somehow responsible for having turned these terrorists into terrorists in the first place and if yucky things like piloting drones absolutely positively has to take place then it should take place on American soil and nowhere near a pleasant and peaceful place like Germany were yucky things of this nature are ausgeschlossen (impossible) from the get-go. Except for a little graffiti here and there, maybe. You see, we (as in we Germans) are pacifists.

In other words go ahead if you must, but not here. Because we know nothing, Colonel Hogan, nothing!

“Die Tötung eines Tatverdächtigen mithilfe einer bewaffneten Drohne außerhalb eines bewaffneten Konflikts” könne, wenn die Bundesregierung davon wisse und nicht protestiere, die “Beteiligung an einem völkerrechtlichen Delikt sein.”

Alternative Energy Available In US-Amerika

Soaring German energy costs in the wake of the country’s transition to renewable energy have seen more and more firms thinking abut relocating their operations. The US looks like a sound alternative, associations claim.

Energy

And this even though everybody (everybody Green or SPD) knows that fracking is EVIL.

“If we don’t get on top of the country’s energy transition to renewables and are not able to rein in energy costs in the process, German industry’s competitiveness stands to suffer.”

Global Warming Five-Year Plan To Be Revised

A pesky and persistent slowdown in global warming over the past several years is now prompting global warming watchdog officials to lower their next five-year temperature forecast plan of doom and distress and nobody out there likes it one damned bit.

Sun

Greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise, these same scientists say, and this makes them wonder why Earth is not getting warmer as this was bekanntlich (as you know) not vorgesehen (envisioned) in the last five-year plan.

Don’t get them wrong, however. Rest assured that the longer-term warning, I mean warming trend will remain one of cataclysmic environmental destruction and human annihilation and no five-year plan will ever change that because  it can’t. That option is not an option. It if were an option then the whole Aufregung (commotion) we’ve been going through all these years would have been nothing more than a ridiculous bout of collective hysteria.

“It certainly is no reason to relax.”

Es handelt sich um einen in der deutschen Nachkriegsgeschichte einzigartigen Fall von obrigkeitsstaatlicher Intervention in eine öffentlich geführte Diskussion.

Barbie Must Die

And the “Barbie Dreamhouse Experience” must be wiped from our collective memory. And said dreamhouse must be razed to the ground, too. This is because Barbie is a clear and present danger and a real threat. At least here in Berlin it is.

Barbie

And as far as I can tell, these are the German feministic reasons for this:

Everything is pink. Barbie and her Dreamhouse are a “pink-colored, sparkling world of beautiful illusion.”

There is an “endless” closet, cupcake baking kitchen, fashion runway and pop-star karaoke stage” inside (OK, I’m with them when it comes to this part).

The Dreamhouse gives “children the chance to taste the sweet nectar of life as a doll” and the protestors don’t like “pretty propaganda” like this.

They find it unfair that “not many women have the possibility of creating such a life for themselves.”

They think that Barbie is a role model that makes young girls want to “always look good, and to cook and clean.”

Barbie and her Dreamhouse “lead to eating disorders,” too.

And on and on and on. The head feminist, Michael Koschitzki, a member of the far-left Left Party’s youth organization, has spearheaded the protest movement against the Dreamhouse, printing thousands of flyers and calling on fellow feminists to gather outside for speeches and protest outside the temporary attraction on Thursday.

I’m speechless, almost. And I’m not making any of this stuff up, either. And these aren’t little girls cranking out this nonsense. These are real live feminist grownup human beings openly calling to picket a Barbie house, albeit a “Barbie Dreamhouse Experience” kind of house, but still. And the worst part of all this? The Barbie Dreamhouse Experience will be charging adults €15 just to get in.

“Barbie has again become a tool for some to advance their own agenda.”

Swabians In Berlin Soon To Be Wearing Yellow Mercedes Stars

Remember that Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in Berlin back in the bad old days with all those signs and scribblings about “Don’t Buy from Jews!” and the like? Of course you don’t.

Schwaben

But many from Berlin’s enlightened anti-gentrification left do remember and have now come up with the breathtakingly brilliant idea of introducing this same simple asymmetrical tactic against the “hated” Berlin Swabian community by spraying “Don’t Buy from Swabians!” on the walls around town, too.

The evil Swabians are hated here, you see, because they work hard and are successful and make lots of money (and the cliché goes that they’re  tightwads, too, but that’s beside the point) and, through their very presence, therefore increase Berlin property values which is an awful thing to do because those of the enlightened left (like most other Germans) do not own property but prefer to pay rent instead and this pushes the rents up and laber, laber, laber (blah, blah, blah) been there done that.

There can be no losers in Germany in general and Berlin in particular, you see (it’s verboten or something). That’s why there are so many of them here, I guess.

Der anonyme Unmut regt sich gegen die Schwaben, weil sie angeblich die Besonderheiten des Stadtviertels veränderten und die Preise auf dem Wohnungsmarkt in die Höhe trieben. In Berlin leben schätzungsweise rund 300.000 Schwaben.

„Kauft nicht bei Schwab’n!“

Germans Bemoan Loaned Drones And Condone Owned Drones Instead

Drones aren’t so evil after all, it seems. As long as Germans are flying them, I mean.

Drones

A German Defense Ministry representative says that the US is ready to approve an official German request for three armed MQ-9 Reaper drone aircraft (formerly known as the “Predator B”) and four ground control stations, to be filed in May this year.

A Forsa survey released earlier in April suggested that only 12 percent of Germans supported the use of armed drones in all circumstances. A majority of 59 percent approved the idea, however, provided that the aircraft were only used to ward off clear and present danger.

Nur wenige Bundesbürger sind gegen den Einsatz. In einer Forsa-Umfrage für die Zeitschrift „Internationale Politik” sprachen sich 12 Prozent der Befragten für eine generelle Erlaubnis aus, 59 Prozent plädierten für einen Drohnen-Einsatz unter bestimmten Bedingungen, etwa zur Abwendung einer unmittelbaren Gefahr. Nur 27 Prozent der Bundesbürger wollen bewaffnete Drohnen generell verbieten.

Empty Box Empty Box

Hamburg police have determined that an empty box found in a subway station just before the Hamburg Marthon was scheduled to begin turned out in fact to be an empty box.

Videoüberwachung

However, if the box had not been empty, no one would have had any video footage of the person who had placed it there because, as you can see, surveillance cameras are still black (as in evil) in Germany.

In light of the Boston Marathon bombings, a new German “debate” about increasing the number of surveillance cameras has begun once again but will lead to nowhere fast as usual.

Kurze Aufregung im Umfeld des Hamburg-Marathon: Die Polizei hat am Sonntag einen verdächtigen Gegenstand in einem U-Bahnhof in der Innenstadt untersucht.