Germans Don’t Need Foreign Leaders Telling Them How Far Free Speech Can Go

April 12, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Boehmermann, Comedy, Erdogan, Free speech, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Journalism, Satire, Turkey 3 Comments

They have there own leaders to do that.

It is illegal under Section 103 of Germany’s criminal code to insult foreign leaders, you see.

So that is why German officials are now “carefully reviewing” the Turkish government’s request to have criminal proceedings be brought against German comedian Jan Boehmermann over his satirical poem suggesting that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan engages in sexual acts with goats.

Wait a minute. Shouldn’t the goats be the insulted ones here? Hardy, har, har. Just joking. Honest, man.

Dass beleidigende Äußerungen hingegen überhaupt strafbar sind, versteht sich keinesfalls von selbst – in Ländern mit angloamerikanischer Rechtsordnung sind sie es ganz überwiegend nicht.

It’s Magic

April 8, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Austria, Balkan Route, Borders, German, Germans, Germany, Immigration, Media, Merkel, Migrants, Propaganda, Refugees Leave a comment

Wow. The refugees have suddenly stopped coming to Germany. Just like that.

All it took, the German government (and government media) tell us today, was Angela Merkel’s strong leadership and the EU’s agreement with Turkey to return migrants who cross the Aegean Sea to Europe illegally. Well…

Most experts, however, say the deal with Turkey, the main plank of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s plan to reduce refugee flows to Europe, had nothing to do with the fall in numbers since it has only been implemented for a few days. Rather, they say the decrease is mainly due to the closure of national borders by countries on the migrants’ Balkan route, a policy Ms. Merkel has vehemently opposed.

That’s right. This is the same German government (and government media) that said that putting stringent border controls in place wouldn’t and couldn’t solve the problem. So I guess, well, uh… Go ahead. You do the math.

Once again: Thanks, Austria. Sometimes – even in ze Europe – just making things happen is the best way to go.

Flüchtlinge: Zahlen sinken drastisch

Speaking Of State Control…

April 6, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: German, Germans, Germany, GEZ, Language, Nanny State, Patermalism, Prison, State Control, Taxation, Television Leave a comment

There may not be any punishment here for producing awful television shows but if YOU get sassy and don’t pay your GEZ TV tax (or “mandatory fee,” as the tax collectors prefer to call it) you can go to jail.

I’m not making this up. All German households must shell out 17.50 euros ($20) a month to watch great entertainment like Traumshiff, Lindenstrasse and Tatort, Tatort, Tatort as well as be submitted to propagandistic-indoctrination-like nightly news programs à la the Tagesschau by those good old fashioned unelected and nameless state TV official folks over there at the ARD and the ZDF (exhale now). Or else.

A woman was freed from prison after a court in Chemnitz had admitted that they had kept her in custody for 61 days because of her refusal to pay the GEZ fees.

Regional state broadcaster MDR applied for an arrest warrant against Sieglinde Baumert in September 2015 in an attempt to force her to sign a statement about her assets, which she refused because, as she told “Die Welt” newspaper, “With my signature I would confirm the legality of the mandatory fees.”

“I feel patronized, I get the decision taken away from me about what I’m paying my money for.”

Censorship Is For Everyone

April 5, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Censorship, Freedom of Speech, German, Germans, Germany, Justice, Language, Law, Lawsuits, Rammstein, State Control Leave a comment

Just like Liebe.

Hey, you know the deal here in Germany: Anything that is not expressly allowed is strictly forbidden. Or at least very, very, very suspicious. You know, like free speech?

Rammstein has filed a lawsuit against Germany for having temporarily indexed the album “Liebe ist für alle da,” said a spokesperson of the Bonn Regional Court on Monday (04.04.2016). The rock band is seeking 66,000 euros (nearly $75,000) in damages.

In 2009, the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons, a German governmental agency responsible for listing works that could potentially harm youths, had decided that one of the songs of the album, “Ich tu dir weh,” as well as the pictures in the booklet accompanying the CD, were “brutalizing” and “immoral.” The entire album was indexed.

Once a work gets listed by the organization, it may not be advertised and can only be sold under strict conditions – limiting its potential success.

Ist alles, was nicht ausdrücklich verboten ist, erlaubt?

The Best Of Both Worlds

April 3, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Austria, Borders, German, Germans, Germany, Immigration, Migrants, Refugees 1 Comment

It’s a win-win situation for Germany again.

Austria solves the Germans’ refugee problem but they can still bitch and moan about how awful Austria is for having put up the mean and nasty border fence that did the solving. Once you’ve climbed the moral high ground you never come down, I guess.

Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia have all brought in no-nonsense measures over the last few months which have sealed up the Balkans route and dissuaded tens of thousands of migrants from making the journey north from Greece.

Astonishingly, beleaguered Mrs Merkel has persistently railed against the reintroduction of border controls, even though they may end up saving her career as Germany’s leader.

Die Alleingänge müssen enden.

Drop In Number Of Refugees Due To Merkel’s Asylum Policy?

March 25, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Austria, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Immigration, Migrants, Refugees, Tempelhof Airport 2 Comments

I think not. Try Austria’s asylum policy of enforcing real border controls.

The Berlin government is going ahead with plans to expand the big refugee center at Tempelhof airport, even though its population has dropped. According to Berlin’s latest official figures, only around 50 refugees are arriving in Berlin every day – a long way below the 1,000 that sometimes arrived daily last fall…

While Merkel officially has stuck to her line, thereby isolating herself in Europe, Austria has made a drastic about-face within a matter of weeks. In September 2015, Faymann criticized Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban’s policy of deterrence, and now, Austria is following suit.

Austria has imposed a cap on the number refugees it will allow into the country and the authorities will now only accept 80 asylum applications per day. A four kilometer long fence has been erected near the town of Spielfeld at the Slovenian border. When Hungary built a fence along its border with Serbia in the autumn, Faymann fiercely attacked the activities. Now, even the armed forces are deployed at the Austrian border.

News Flash: Wealth Unevenly Distributed Here

March 21, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Dollars, Equality, Euros, German, Germans, Germany, Income, Income Inequality, Language, Wealth 3 Comments

Germans everywhere were shocked to discover today that the nation’s wealth has not been evenly, uniformly and fairly distributed as had previously been believed.

“Wah? Howya figure?” asked one dumbfounded German upon being informed by Spiegel-Online that the upper ten percent of his fellow countrymen possesses 60 percent of Germany’s wealth while the lower half only owns a lousy 2.5 percent of it (leaving lots of wealth left over somewhere else if I’ve done the math correctly, but still). “This sure is news to me. We Germans have all been raised in the confidence that we live in an ideal, egalitarian society in which things like income inequality are absolutely unthinkable and unheard of, much less possible. Why, these are amerikanische Verhältnisse or something! Why weren’t we informed of this earlier?”

Spiegel-Online apologized for this but then comforted their distraught readers by explaining that at least every German household enjoys having some 214,000 euros ($240,000) at its disposal – on average.

Jeder Haushalt besitzt 214.000 Euro – im Schnitt.

Oman

March 14, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Arms, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Oman, Pacifism, Profits, Weapons Leave a comment

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

Because somebody has to admire them.

In January, Economy Minister Gabriel (SPD) said Germany may look harder at its arms exports to Saudi Arabia after the Gulf kingdom carried out its biggest mass execution for decades. In addition, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) has repeatedly said that Berlin wants to deescalate tensions in the Middle East.

But What About Datenschutz?

March 10, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hate, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Data Privacy, Data Protection, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, ISIS, Language, Terror, Terrorists Leave a comment

That means data privacy and is way big medicine here in Germany indeed. Just go ask Google, Facebook, the Boy Scouts, whoever.

So like how on earth could German counter-terrorism police be “investigating documents (illegally acquired) said to reveal the identities of a large number of fighters of so-called Islamic State?” Without their expressed written permission, I mean. Do Julian Assange and Edward Snowden know about this?

Don’t these terrorists have the right to keep the German state from snooping into their, uh, Islamic state? Somebody call the nation’s Datenschutzbeauftragter (data protection officer) immediately. This is an outrage or something.

22 000 Namen von Islamisten enthüllt | ISIS-Geheimdienstchef verlor USB-Stick mit Terrordaten

German Spies Don’t Spy On Friends

February 28, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: BDN, Catherine Ashton, Espionage, EU, German, Germans, Germany, John Kerry, NSA, Spies, Spying, Surveillance Leave a comment

But only because they appear to have Laurel and Hardy doing it.

An attempt to wiretap John Kerry’s personal cellphone number back in 2013 failed, for instance, because the agent trying to do the listening in mixed up the US country code with one from Africa.

The Germans apparently had better luck spying on the former foreign policy chief of the European Union, Catherine Ashton back in 2008, however, although I have to assume that they misdialed this number, too. Maybe they were tying to listen in on that Jose Manuel Barroso guy instead?

Laut „Spiegel“ hatte der BND auch die Handynummer von US-Außenminister John Kerry 2013 in die Erfassung aufgenommen. Dabei habe es aber wegen einer Panne keine Abhörergebnisse gegeben: Ein BND-Mitarbeiter habe angeblich statt der Ländervorwahl der USA versehentlich die eines afrikanischen Landes eingegeben.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Hypocrisy