Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.
Because somebody has to admire them.
Saudi-Arabien ist Hauptabnehmer deutscher Waffen.
Category Archives: Hypocrisy
Taxing Nuclear Fuel Rods That Aren’t Being Used?
You can never be too rich or too thin, I guess. And if you’re Germany, you can never tax too much, either.
Germany’s biggest utilities, still reeling from the country’s early exit from nuclear power, scored a major victory Tuesday when a Hamburg court said the national tax on nuclear fuel rods may violate European law.
The Hamburg finance court said it “cannot assess beyond any doubt” whether the tax on nuclear fuel used for electricity generation complies with European law. It will now ask the European Court of Justice to decide whether the levy conforms with rules that prohibit member states from creating new taxes on electricity for “general budget financing purposes.”
The tax was introduced at the beginning of 2011 and came as part of an extension of nuclear reactors’ operating lives that the government had agreed on. However, the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima power plant in March of that year triggered a U-turn in German energy policy, with Chancellor Angela Merkel ordering the immediate shutdown of the oldest plants and the early phaseout of nuclear energy by 2022. Out of 17 reactors that were in operation in March 2011, only nine are still producing power. But the fuel-rod tax remains in place, to the utilities’ annoyance.
Das Hamburger Finanzgericht will vom Europäischen Gerichtshof (EuGH) in Luxemburg zentrale Fragen zur umstrittenen Brennelementesteuer klären lassen.
SPD In Coalition Government = Gender Quota Legislation
Thank goodness this gender quota nonsense is finally about to be settled so a new coalition government can be formed in Germany.
Word has it that the CDU has agreed to let the SPD in if the proposed legislation stipulates only that each gender will be represented by at least one gender each.
German companies listed on the stock exchange will need at least 30% of supervisory board members to be female from 2016, according to proposed legislation.
If It Works, Fix It
This is another one of those “only in Germany” numbers. Or maybe it isn’t (I’m slowly losing track of what’s going on out there in “the real world”).
The Deutsche Bahn’s program to use small drones to patrol railyards by night in a bid to fight graffiti spraying graffiti terrorists has suffered a setback. Although the test flights worked out just wunderbar, the German Luftsicherheitsbehörden (air security authority) has stopped the program for now as no night flight permits have been permitted – for drones designed to patrol railyards by night. Ordnung muss sein already.
This is actually a bit of a relief for me, to tell you the truth. Before reading the article I was convinced that the flights had been cancelled due to Fluglärm issues. Fluglärm (aircraft noise) is a big honking major awesome all-important obsession for all Germans at all times in all regions and all locations all over the country (and tomorrow the world) and I was sure that I was about to read how these mini-drones were simply too loud for the Anwohner (local residents), whoever or wherever they were.
Whew! That wasn’t the case, like I said. At least not this time. But let’s just wait and see what happens when/if these things are ever actually allowed to fly.
“Die Tests sind exzellent gelaufen, ein hervorragendes Einsatzmittel. Jedoch erteilen die Luftsicherheitsbehörden der Länder derzeit keine Fluggenehmigung für die Nachtstunden.”
I’ll Bash Germany With The Best Of Them
But… How is it that its critics blame Germany for the high unemployment, declining living standards, and riots to their South?
If this were a football game, the referee should call unnecessary roughness for piling on Germany. The American Left led by Paul Krugman (The Harm Germany Does and Those Depressing Germans) excoriates Germany for forcing austerity on the rest of Europe. The U.S. Treasury – and others – (no newcomer to spending) demands that miserly Germany spend more to pull the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) out of their economic doldrums…
I interpret the liberals’ German bashing as having an entirely different motivation – their inherent dislike of economic success… In the liberal mind set, success must be equally shared. If one person, company, or country is better off, it must be at the expense of those who are less well off. We need to even things out in their zero-sum world.
PS: And I’m going to go even further out on the limb tonight defending Germany by predicting that they will finally – after 19 encounters? – beat Italy.
Germany To Be Punished For Europe Not Having Enough Germanys
The EU now too is concerned that Germany’s current account surplus “is harming the wider European economy” and is openly considering punishing the naughty economic powerhouse.
Germany is relying too much on exports, eurozone officials are grumbling, while not doing enough to create demand at home. And although these officials maintain that “our problem will never be German competitiveness, but whether Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse, could do more to rebalance Europe’s economy,” their problem has always been German competitiveness and knowing that Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse, cannot do more to rebalance Europe’s economy.
“Europe needs more Germanys,” in other words, and it’s up to Germany to now, uh, create them.
Deutschland kann dem Rest Europas nicht Regeln vorschreiben und sich selbst nicht daran halten.
PS: “It’s GOOD to be the export king.”
A Scrooge Issue?
Or is it more of a squanderer one?
I don’t know what troubles me more here; a Germany that spends too little for Christmas or the weakest European economies that spend too much.
With almost 28 percent unemployment and a lingering recession that’s wiped out one-fourth of their country’s economic output, it makes sense that Greek consumers plan to trim their Christmas spending by 12.8 percent this year. What’s more surprising is that the average Greek budget for holiday gifts, food, and drink is €451 ($608)—more than the €399 average in Germany, the country that has borne much of the cost of a Greek bailout.
Residents of Ireland, another bailed-out economy, plan to outspend the Germans more than two to one this Christmas, with an average €894 budget. In Spain, where unemployment is at 26 percent, consumers expect to spend an average €567. In recession-hobbled Italy, meanwhile, the figure is €477.
“Differences between countries’ spending habits are linked to the culture of the countries.”
At Least It Didn’t Happen To The Muslims Or The Jews
This is nothing to get cross about or anything, I guess, but the OSCE reports that there were 414 cases of anti-Christian abuse and attacks in Germany last year.
The offences included acts of violence, church desecration and theft.
Zu den erfassten Delikten zählen Gewalttaten, Kirchenschändungen und Diebstahl.
CO2 Is Bad, Right?
Germany has produced 2 percent more CO2 than it did the previous year, 20 million tons more. Oh yeah, and there had been an increase in CO2 production the year before that, too.
Uh, I thought that this Energiewende (energy turnaround) thing was supposed to reduce these emissions. I mean, after turning off all of the German nuclear power plants and all, CO2 emissions just had to have dropped, right? I was never very good at science, though, much less at rocket science. This Scheiße is clearly way too complicated for me.
“Nach ersten überschlägigen Schätzungen dürften sich die energiebedingten CO2-Emissionen in Deutschland um etwa 20 Millionen Tonnen oder um reichlich zwei Prozent erhöhen.”
PS: Speaking of Scheiße, it turns out, to my amazement, that there actually are Germans who don’t like dogs. There seems to be a new anti-dog movement in the making that is being spearheaded by a magazine called Kot und Köter (Crap and Muts). I guess this had to happen sooner or later. And Kot causes CO2 emissions too, right?
Bottle In Front Of Me Better Than Frontal Lobotomy
Or better than psychotherapy, for that matter. Or at least that’s what one German health official has said. A bottle of warm beer can be more effective.
But the Brain Police are now vigorously reminding us (as in you) that one is not permitted to say stuff like that so now this guy’s in real hot water. Or warm beer, I guess.
“A psychotherapist is not needed next to every citizen. Sometimes a beer is enough.”
Observing Hermann 