Redistribution Is Da Solution (Again)

June 3, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Builders, Germans, Germany, Government Control, Housing, Interventionism, Landlords, Regulation, Rent Control, Renters 6 Comments

The next step backwards: Berlin has a new law prohibiting landlords from demanding rents that are more than 10 percent higher than the area average, in an attempt to keep housing affordable in a city that’s attracting 50,000 new residents a year. The rule relies on a disputed index — known as the Mietspiegel — that critics say is a statistical crapshoot.

“The rent brake is essentially a transfer of wealth from landlords to tenants. Berlin will become less of a destination for international investors because capital doesn’t like to be constrained.”

Meet The New Level Of Contempt

June 2, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Anti-Americanism, Gerhard Schroeder, German, Germans, Germany, SPD 3 Comments

Same as the old level of contempt. This guy means well with his article and all, I guess, but he’s way off base if he thinks that Germany’s current level of anti-Americanism has only now “become a fungible (freely exchangeable or replaceable) aspect of German politics” all of a sudden. It’s never been any different here.

The only thing really new might be the “deep institutionalization” of it, as former US ambassador to Germany, John Kornblum, put it. And that began with the German Social Democrat chancellor Gerhard Schröder “who combined a refusal to send German troops to Iraq with a promise of Germany’s ’emancipation’ from America” and who cashed in big time on that with his reelection.

But it ain’t no big deal. That’s just the way the world works, folks. And it’s not that the Germans take this stuff in with their mother’s milk. It’s more like they’re fish when it comes to their anti-Americanism. I mean, does a fish even know that it’s swimming in water?

“Anti-Americanism today is a cheap means to a new German nationalism with a good conscience.”

PS (my progressive American types): Have you noticed here that it doesn’t matter even when you have HIM HIMSELF (The World President) as president? Is the light starting to go on yet?

Bundeswehr To Become Even More Effeminate

May 31, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hotness, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Armies, Bundeswehr, Combat, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Politics, Quotas, Satire, Ursula von der Leyen, Women Leave a comment

Who would have thought that? Only eleven percent of German troops are currently women. This must change, of course.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, herself one of the eleven percent, has decided that in the medium-term, the percentage of women currently not doing anything that other soldiers in other armies do (some call it combat) must be increased to 20 percent.

The reason behind this appears to be that by effectively reducing the combat strength of an army, this will effectively increase the combat strength of an army. Not your own army or anything, but still.

The inglorious Bundeswehr: The German army was never meant to function on its own. Now it barely functions at all.

Elf Prozent der Truppe ist derzeit weiblich. Verteidigungsministerin Ursula von der Leyen will diesen Wert verbessern und ruft ein neues Ziel aus: “Auf mittlere Sicht” soll der Frauenanteil auf 20 Prozent steigen.

German Of The Day: Auf Dem Linken Auge Blind

May 28, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: AfD, Frauke Petry, Free speech, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Left-Wing Extremists, Nazis, Paint Bombs 1 Comment

That means “blind in the left eye” and that’s what mainstream media in Germany is. When it comes to politically motivated attacks, I mean.

More German n-word nonsense here. Apparently, if you’re a eurosceptic and anti-immigration – and a top dog in the AfD protest party – that automatically makes you a Nazi these days.

This woman isn’t a Nazi, of course. Not by any means. But her views are troubling for a lot of people in Germany because it’s how they think, too, only they are not able to speak their minds out loud. So the enlightened left just just took over the conversation for them and attacked her with a paint bomb at a meeting in Göttingen, calling her a Nazi because, well, they can. And, when in doubt, everybody uses the n-word here so this is nothing new. And extreme left-wingers are, I dunno, cute or something.

See Goodwin’s law if you’re confused on this point. These folks just refuse to grow up.

“Sind Sie Frauke Petry?”

German Of The Day: Zwangsbeitrag

May 25, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: ARD, Experts, Fees, German, Germans, Germany, Government Control, Public-Sector TV, Scientists, Tatort, Taxation, TV, ZDF Leave a comment

That means “compulsory contribution” and refers here to the TV fees every German household has to pay for Öffentlich-Rechtliche or public-sector (or state) TV. You have to pay this here, you see, whether you watch these channels or not. You have to pay this here whether you even own a TV or not. Germany has the most expensive public-sector TV channels in the world, by the way.

Sounds reasonable, right? Hardy, har har. Well, now German “scientists” have suddenly figured out that Germany no longer needs these expensive public-sector channels and that they can be, pardon my French, “privatized.” German scientists are notoriously thorough, you know, and that’s why it takes them a little longer than other folks to figure this kind of stuff out.

Other Germans will not want to hear this, however. This is because, well… It’s hard to say why this is. It would mean getting rid of Tatort, for one thing. This would be earth-shattering or something. And in the end, Germans also want to have an official opinion maker, I suppose, someone they can always go to when they need an official opinion of their own, so-to-speak – and Der Spiegel isn’t handy at that moment.

The more things change the more they stay the same. So don’t even THINK about changing channels. “That’s right, folks. Don’t touch that dial!”

Wissenschaftler stellen bei der Betrachtung von ARD und ZDF fest: Deutschland braucht nicht länger den teuersten öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunk der Welt.

Forget Mediation

May 21, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Hostage-Taking, Special Interest Groups, Strikes, Unions Leave a comment

What these guys need is some meditation. Or maybe some heavy medication.

Don’t worry. These GDL train drivers will be back for strike number ten before too long. And not that anybody cares anymore or anything, but the post office employees and kindergarden cop-people are still on strike here, too.

Remember when Germany used to be a “first world” country?

The latest strike is the ninth walkout in just 11 months and follows a five-day train strike earlier in May, which was the longest in Deutsche Bahn’s 21-year history.

Next Big US-Amerikan Internet Giant Soon To Threaten The German Way Of Life Again

May 19, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Internet, Postmates, Satire, Silicon Valley, Uber Leave a comment

Whatever that is. It’s called Postmates and it’s an on-demand courier service that is sure to ruin everything Germans hold to be hoch und heilig (holy) in the realm of quick and easy albeit expensive pick-up and drop-off service.

It’s despicable and it’s nasty and it’s wait a minute… A German invented it. Well, a little German innovation never hurt anybody, right?

Postmates has set itself an ambitious goal — to be the Uber of goods, with a vast network of couriers, linked, like Uber’s drivers, via a sleek app, waiting for users to hit a button on their smartphones and send them forth to pick up anything that money can buy. Like Uber’s drivers, Postmates couriers aren’t employees but “independent contractors.” Anyone with a bike, car, truck, scooter or motorcycle can register and decide exactly when they want to work.

“In Germany, if you have an idea like mine, people think you’re deluded.”

But What Does This Guy Know?

May 13, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: BND, German, Germans, Germany, NSA, Spies, Spying Leave a comment

China and Russia are the most avid intelligence gatherers in Germany, says Hans-Georg Maassen, head of Germany’s intelligence agency.

But like, who cares about that? That’s beside the point or something. We Germans are empört (appalled) about this Skandal (scandal) and we’re going to stay that way, damn it.

Liebe Deutsche, findet euch damit ab, dass ihr ausspioniert werdet!

A Green Superpower?

May 10, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: CO2, Coal, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Nuclear power, Pollution, Renewable energy Leave a comment

Germany?

Germany is a superpower when it comes to setting ambitious goals. But it’s even better at burning coal.

Germany aims to generate 80% of its power from renewable sources by 2050 with nuclear being fully phased out by 2021. But given the costs associated with renewables and the challenge of replacing nuclear power efficiently, it is not clear that Germany will succeed in either of these goals…

The Germans have increasingly turned to coal as their power generation source of choice, especially U.S. coal. Today coal power plants are responsible for generating nearly half of Germany’s power, and numerous new plants are scheduled to come online in the next few years.

Overall, the increase in coal is likely to create a significant increase in airborne pollution and potentially stoke tension between Germany and its neighbors. But at the same time, if Germany wants to phase out nuclear power, coal is the only realistic option; a fact which some German politicians are starting to admit.

German Spies Spying For American Spies Shocked To Discover That American Spies Were Actually Of The Spy Variety

May 7, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, BND, Espionage, Germany, Humor, NSA, Satire, Spies, Spying Leave a comment

After years of close cooperation with the NSA, Germany’s BND has now suddenly reduced this cooperation upon finding out that the information they had been furnishing the NSA with was being used for espionage purposes.

“Who would have thought that?” asked one high-ranking German spy official with a paper bag on his head. “We all figured that that list of 40,000 selectors (IP addresses, search terms and names) we at the BND used on behalf of the NSA had some other justification. I dunno. I personally assumed they wanted to order pizza or something. But to go and spy on other folks like that? No way. We don’t want anything to do with that kind of Scheiße.”

It still remains to be seen whether this list can be released, as that depends on what arrangements were made with the US by the then government [of Gerhard Schröder] after the dramatic events of September 11.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Hypocrisy