Wacko Level Three

It’s gone completely wackodelic, captain. I don’t know how much longer the ship can take it!

Wackodelic

Really enlightened Berlin activists (all activists are enlightened, of course, but you can tell the really enlightened ones by that weird gleam in their eyes) are now instructing us to become shoplifters for humanity. Upset about the conditions under which chocolate, bananas, orange juice and other products are harvested and/or produced, they are calling on us to begin stealing this stuff from our local supermarkets. The money we save by doing so will then be donated to those who deserve it. They mean us thieves are supposed to donate it, of course.

Think of Robin Hood except with a big coat at your local Safeway. Oh, the humanity of it all. It gives me goosebumps. No, wait. That’s a nasty rash. I’m going to run over to Aldi real quick and steal some skin creme or something. For the needy, you know? I’m just sayin’.

Schokolade, Bananen, Orangensaft: Viele Lebensmittel werden unter zweifelhaften Bedingungen hergestellt. Jetzt provozieren Aktivisten mit dem Aufruf, die Waren im Laden zu stehlen – und das gesparte Geld an die Produzenten zu spenden.

German Of The Day: Kontinuität

That means continuity. And that is what the Berlinale Film Festival is famous for.

Berlinale

Take this year’s Gold Bear winner, for instance. Please. “Touch Me Not” is a Romanian film about a woman “struggling with intimacy issues and learning to be comfortable with her body.” And it is a work of cineastic Kunst with sex scenes so explicit and images so disgusting that many viewers had to leave the theater during the viewing.

Continuity, like I said. The Berlinale is first and foremost a political event. And, of course, we all know what kind of political event political events in the film industry must be. Radical is good. Ugly is good. Leftist moral revisionism is good. Porno marketed as art to a willing, enabling (see #MeToo) jury of Hollywooedesque film elitists is good.

And this year’s Golden Bear winner, just like the Golden Bear winner every year, has already been long forgotten by THE REST OF US before the Berlinale trappings have been removed and packed away for next year’s show.

Während des Festivals hatte das auch mit deutschem Geld realisierte Werk die Kritiker gespalten. Denn darin sind detailreich alle Spielarten menschlicher Sexualität zu sehen, es gibt den Besuch in einem Sado-Maso-Club, auch behinderte Menschen sind dabei.

More Government In Action

Universal law: Ever notice how when the government employees who are paid to do the job that they are paid to do are eventually asked to finally do the job they are paid to do suddenly have great and nearly insurmountable problems actually doing it – primarily because they are chronically understaffed? Or claim to be?

Government

Well, it’s not just where you live, wherever that might live. Take Berlin’s civil servants, for instance. Please. Remember the Anis Amri case?

The latest here is that the police director of Berlin’s Islamism Department (no, they don’t support Islamism, they combat it – or are at least supposed to) had time enough to pursue private sideline jobs while loudly and officially complaining about how he and his department were completely overstretched on the case.

See how it works? Everywhere? So the next time somebody comes along in your city/state/national capital wanting to cut costs by firing some of these chronically understaffed people, please keep this in mind.

Während seine Mitarbeiter hoffnungslos überlastet waren, hatte der Leiter des Berliner Islamismus-Dezernats offenbar trotzdem Zeit für private Nebenjobs.

Torpedoes Are Ready For Firing

Alarm Bells Ringing As German Court Prepares Diesel Verdict That Could Torpedo The Industry.

Daimler

This is widespread criminal activity here, people. VW may have gotten Dieselgate rolling, then Audi & Co. gets caught but now its Daimler’s turn.

Daimler AG, the automaker which produces the Mercedes-Benz line of luxury vehicles, is facing growing scrutiny after US investigators reportedly found that it installed software to cheat diesel emissions tests on cars, Bloomberg and Reuters reported.

I got three words to say here: Made in Germany. Here are three more: Betrug mit System (systematic fraud). Get this diesel Dreck (filth) out of here already.

Meanwhile… Tesla vehicles now dominates luxury segment in Europe, outselling flagship gas-powered German cars

Tesla Model S übertrumpft in Europa erstmals deutsche Premium-Konkurrenz.

Complicated?

Not at all. It’s called freeloading.

Gabriel

Germany and two percent for defense – it’s complicated.

Lofty goals of European and NATO cooperation abound here at the Munich Security Conference, but who will pay the bill?

Top German leaders here have managed to put a damper on the expectation that Berlin would radically ramp up its defense spending, as Washington would have it, stressing instead that gradual boosts and integration with foreign development would yield better results than military might alone.

“We no longer recognize our America.” No, Sigmar. I guess you don’t. That America where nobody bothered to call it freeloading up until now, I mean.

SPD Outrage…

Is the most outrageous kind of outrage there is around here. Take this one: Outrage about the unacceptably high number of temp employment contracts in Germany today. We’ll see to it that these poor people get real jobs!

SPD

Fine. Run with it. So that’s why the SPD is making such a big noise about alleviating this scourge as soon as the next GroKo (with SPD participation) is finally in power.

The only dumb thing here is that they wouldn’t have to wait that long if they didn’t want to. It turns out that the folks over at the SPD-run Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, for instance, have hired way too many of these poor defenseless temp employees themselves. They’re not willing to give these people permanent contracts, however. This is because… Because why anyway? And there we have it again, folks: The SPD redistributor world vs. the real finite resources world.

Die SPD hat im Koalitionsvertrag einen Kompromiss zu sachgrundlosen Befristungen ausgehandelt. Tatsächlich ist die Praxis aber auch in Bundesministerien gängig.

Turn That Frown Upside Down

Before you’re out of the picture altogether. The SPD’s “popularity” rating has now dropped to 17%. They used to say anything under 20% for a so-called Volkspartei and you’re dead. Now they’re happy to have even that.

Nahesl

And their fearless leaders are dropping like flies, too. First of all the savior guy from a year ago, Martin Schulz, who has now met his political end. Next, with any luck, the super Sozi Andreas Nahles herself. She has already elected herself to take over for him and be the head of the party, even if it’s only temporary, but the party is so beat up and bleeding and tired of the leadership’s mismanagement that they may just tell her no.

And this would be a shocker. She has the best SPD credentials you can possibly have: She studied for ten or twenty years and has never worked a day in her life. She has had years of experience, however, being head social democrat what’s in charge of redistributing other people’s money and seeing to it that future generations pay for her over-the-top spending. I’d hate to see her go but I’d get over it. That means she would finally have to get a real job and see what it’s like to earn that money herself. Oops. I forgot. As a top dog civil servant her big fat retirement is waiting for her now.

Sie ist zwar keine Partei-Vize, doch der SPD-Vorstand überlegt dennoch, Andrea Nahles kommissarisch den Parteivorsitz zu übergeben. Mehrere Landesverbände lehnen das ab.

The Case Of The Missing Navy

OK, practically non-existent navy.

The German military commissioner is always the last to know, I guess.

Ship

He, too, has now determined that the German navy does not have enough ships (and we don’t even want to start thinking about their submarines). Not that the warships they do have will ever actually be used as warships or anything, just sayin’.

New ships are apparently too technologically complex to operate, it seems. And the older ships can’t seem to get the parts they need due to excessive bureaucracy and end up stranded indefinitely in dry dock.

He did have some good news, however. The German navy is really good at mothballing their older ships. Six of the 15 older frigates were taken out of service in exemplary fashion. Without being replaced by new ones, of course. Aber immerhin (but still).

“Es sollte keine neue maritime Mission für Nato, EU oder Uno mehr dazukommen. Der Marine gehen die einsatzfähigen Schiffe aus.”

Made In Germany

Speaking of sanctions… Neither Iran nor Syria will ever have to worry about those, either. Not as long as Germany is in the picture, I mean.

Germany

Germany’s Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control approved a license for a company to sell military applicable technology to Iranian companies that subsequently was used in Syrian regime chemical weapons attacks, reported the German publication Bild on Monday.

The German company Krempel, located near the southern city of Stuttgart, sold electronic press boards to Iranian companies that were used in the production of rockets.

Deutsche Bauteile in Assads Giftgas-Raketen – „Der konventionelle Gefechtskopf wurde entfernt und mit einem großen Gaszylinder ersetzt.“ Die Kennzeichnung aller Raketen verrate, dass sie „2016 produziert wurden und während des Konfliktes aus dem Iran geliefert wurden“.

“Sanctions Against North Korea Apparently Ineffective”

Like, duh. How could they be effective if countries like Germany, and a number of other “cooperative States,” keep letting the North Koreans get around them?

Korea

North Korea procured equipment and technology for its ballistics missiles program using its embassy in Berlin, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has said.

“We determined that procurement activities were taking place there, from our perspective with an eye on the missile program, as well as the nuclear program to some extent,” BfV head Hans-Georg Maassen told public broadcaster NDR in an interview.

Falsche Ladepapiere, ungewöhnliche Schifffahrtsrouten, das Verladen von Öl auf hoher See: Nordkorea umgeht offenbar systematisch alle bestehenden internationalen Sanktionen. Ein brisanter UN-Bericht bringt nun eine Reihe kooperierender Staaten in Bedrängnis.