Category Archives: Hypocrisy

I Got The Power

December 20, 2013 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

The power bill, I mean. The Power Bill Blues, actually. Just like everybody else here in Germany.

Power

The electricity prices in Germany are the highest in the EU. A household here shells out 1000 euros annually (approx. $1,370). The French pay half. The EU average is around 700 euros.

Is this what they meant by the Energiewende (energy turnaround)? The power may be renewable here but I’m not sure how much longer the money is going to be.

Well, at least the electricity prices in Germany will be going up even higher again next year.

Bei den Strompreisen gehört Deutschland innerhalb der EU zu den Spitzenreitern. Ein Haushalt zahlt mehr als 1000 Euro, der EU-Schnitt liegt bei 700. Und im kommenden Jahr dürfte es noch teurer werden.

Real Germans Don’t Tweet

December 18, 2013 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

According to Semiocast, an analyst, Germany ranks 31st worldwide in terms of public tweets, with 59m per year. Germany’s 82m people have just 4m Twitter accounts. That puts it 22nd in the world, behind not only European neighbours like Britain (population 63m, 45m accounts) or Spain (population 47m, 16m accounts) but also Turkey (population 75m, 11m accounts) and the Philippines (population 98m, 8.6m accounts).

Junglecamp

But they do like to google, however. Although what they googled most in election year 2013 is another matter. The number one German search item was Wahl-O-Mat, an online election tool that tells you who to vote for.

And Amazon didn’t even make the short list. That’s because it’s “designed for world domination,” I assume.

“Innovation erfordert den Willen, über einen langen Zeitraum missverstanden zu werden.”

“On The Run From The Henchmen Of His Homeland”

December 18, 2013 By in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Concerned Germans everywhere (note the red scarf) weren’t quite concerned enough to actually offer poor and misunderstood professional leaker/Russian tourist Edward Snowden political asylum, but now they all hope in unison that Brazil will (tons of Germans have found refuge there in the past, you know).

Snowden

Otherwise those awful henchmen/bogeymen from that horrible homeland of his might just get him and, well, we don’t even want to THINK about what could possibly happen to him then!

Ex-NSA-Mitarbeiter Edward Snowden will auf seiner Flucht vor den Häschern seines Heimatlandes offenbar nach Brasilien weiterreisen.

That’s Almost German

December 17, 2013 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hi-tech, High Art, Higher Education, Hotness, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

The language, I mean. “Was Mir Sorgen?” Nice try. But way cool image, I must say.

Alfred

Well, it is a weird state of affairs when you cannot give away free porn to anonymous people who only visit your site because it has free porn.

Yes it is. But welcome to Germany, sort of. What, me worry (was, ich soll mir Sorgen machen)?

It was originally thought that the letters were sent because of a court error. However, Thomas Urmann of the legal firm U+C told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag that they plan to investigate more infringements on porn streaming sites next year, a move that would set a worldwide precedent.

Bah Humbug!

December 16, 2013 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Hundreds of Amazon.com Inc workers in Germany went on strike on Monday, just as pre-Christmas sales were set to peak, in a dispute over pay and conditions that has raged for months…

Amazon

The Verdi union said up to 700 workers joined the strike in Amazon’s logistic center in Bad Hersfeld, plus 500 to 600 in Leipzig. For the first time, the union also called a strike in Graben, where Verdi said 600 workers took part.

Now that’s what I call having the Christmas spirit. Just replace the Scrooge part below with Ver.di.

Fred: Merry Christmas, Uncle Scrooge!
Scrooge: What’s so merry about it? I’ll tell you what Christmas is. It’s just another work day, and any jackanape who thinks else should be boiled in his own pudding!
Cratchit: But sir, Christmas is a time for giving… a time to be with one’s family.
Scrooge: I say, Bah humbug!
Fred: I don’t care! I say, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas!
Cratchit: [clapping] Well said, Master Fred!
Scrooge: Cratchit, what are you doing?
Cratchit: [stops clapping] I was just trying to keep my hands warm, sir.

Amazon has recently announced it would build three new logistics centers in Poland and two in the Czech Republic, prompting speculation that it could seek to shift work across the border from strike-hit centers in Germany.

Only In Berlin

December 13, 2013 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Speaking of paying more for more of nothing…

Wowereit

Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit (SPD), the guy personally responsible for the German capital’s world renown BER Berlin Brandenburg still-not-an-Airport project, will be chosen later today to become the new chairman of the board of the Berlin Brandenburg Airport Company and thus once again become personally responsible for the German capital’s world renown BER Berlin Brandenburg still-not-an-Airport project.

What part of that don’t you understand? I don’t understand any of it. All I know is that if this were a comedy project we were talking about here it would be a raving success.

Wowereit had already been chairman of the board for the Berlin Brandenburg Airport Company from 2008 to 2013 (not all that long ago), of course, until some trifling misunderstanding cropped up about the airport still not being completed after 10 or 20 years or something like that, I forget, but that is all now Schnee von gestern (long forgotten, “yesterday’s snow”) and everything will be OK again because if there is any one person in all of Germany who can possibly get this job done it is most definitely and certainly Klaus Wowereit himself.

By the way, he has to be reelected today because there is no other opposing candidate. Don’t be bothered by that, though. That kind of thing has a long tradition here in Berlin.

Ausgerechnet der vielgeschmähte Klaus Wowereit soll erneut den Aufsichtsrat der Flughafengesellschaft führen. Er erhält damit eine zweite Chance, das Projekt doch noch zum Erfolg zu führen.

PS: There’s more Klaus stuff here, if you like.

I Love You, You Big Dummy

December 12, 2013 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Come to Berlin Country! Come to where the City Tax is!

City Tax

The city of Berlin loves youz tourists, honest it does. Sort of. In fact, the local yokel politicians here love youz guys so much that they feel the pressing need to show you just how much that is. And it’s a full 15 percent more than any of you out there were expecting. And that’s 15 percent more for getting absolutely nothing in return!

That’s right. Starting next month you will be permitted to pay an additional 15 percent City Tax on top of your hotel room bill here, at no extra cost to them and absolutely not free of charge for you! Now that’s what I call big City Tax hospitality!

I love you, you big dummy. You big dumb tourist. Book your flight to Berlin now!

“Es ist absolut nicht rechtssicher und wird ein bürokratisches Verwaltungsmonster sein.”

Swords To Pflugscharen?

December 11, 2013 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

You can stop the import of Mein Kampf in Germany, why not stop the export of expensive weapons systems out of Germany?

Mein Kampf

The Munich Institute for Contemporary History has been working for years on a “scientific edition” of Hitler’s book. In 2012 the state government gave the green light, now it wants to stop the project*.

Weapons

Meanwhile… On the occasion of his ninety-fifth birthday, Helmut Schmidt has called on the federal government to stop German weapons exports.”It is time to raise an objection,” the former chancellor wrote in the ZEIT. Germany is the world’s third largest weapons exporter and ranks before China, Japan, France and England, directly after the USA and Russia. “A development that displeases me greatly. And one that needs to be stopped by the coming coalition government in Berlin.”

Er habe Verständnis für “die Unlust der heutigen Deutschen”, “Aber ich halte es für abwegig, statt Soldaten Waffen zu schicken.”

* Germany does not ban “Mein Kampf,” but Bavaria has used its ownership of the copyright to block domestic publication until now. Late Tuesday, the state premier’s chief of staff, Christine Haderthauer, said that Hitler’s anti-Semitic memoir amounts to incitement and that the state would file a criminal complaint if anyone tried to publish it in the future. In Germany, copyright expires 70 years after an author’s death.

Günter Wallraff Dresses Up As Günter Wallraff To Appear As Günter Wallraff On Günther Jauch

December 9, 2013 By in Habitudes, Hate, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Günter Wallraff, disguised as the unspeakably annoying undercover reporter Günter Wallraff, appeared undercover last night on Günther Jauch to explain to Günther Jauch how he, as Günter Wallraff, just went undercover to uncover at Amazon ITSELF how Amazon is now single-handedly causing “our entire culture to atrophy” and how it is a “monster” that is using its “slave laborers” to bring “our entire society” in imminent danger (when he says “our” here, folks, he actually means “our” as in the “German our”).

Günter

Other than that though he appeared somewhat lucid at times, or at least until the end of the show when his hallucinations began to resurface again and he started foaming at the mouth once more and got in a few of his more predictable anti-American swipes but by that time it was time for me to go to bed and go undercover myself so I had no other choice but to shut his ridiculous ass down.

Günther Jauch stellt in seiner Talkshow den Boykott des Onlineversenders zur Debatte. Dabei fällt der Streit um unmögliche Arbeitsverhältnisse bei Amazon glatt in sich zusammen.