Category Archives: Hysteria

Germans Won’t Buy The Right Gasoline

March 1, 2011 By in Hi-tech, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Actually, it’s the left gasoline, but still.

Strange, isn’t it? On the one hand, you probably won’t be able to find a nation more vocal when it comes to saving the environment and/or planet than Germany. On the other hand, it would be hard to imagine a nation of car freaks more freakish about their big German cars than Germans are (the dirtiest in Europe – the cars not the drivers).

Anyways, car freaks everywhere in Germany have united and are absolutely positively refusing to buy the latest thing that is good for them, an “organic” fuel called E10 that contains 10 percent ethanol. The reason? Rumor has it that this stuff can cause motor damage on some car models. Everybody’s buying super instead and now there’s a super shortage, which is anything but super.

I guess you have to ask yourself one question, punks: Your planet or your car? You know, kind of like that old Jack Benny gag where the armed thief asks “Your money or your life?” and Jack Benny won’t answer at first and finally replies “I’m thinking.”

Bisher sind die Autofahrer überwiegend nicht bereit, den neuen Bio-Kraftstoff E10 mit zehn Prozent Ethanol zu tanken.

Dumb Americans buying big cars again

February 2, 2011 By in Heconomy, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

But some of them aren’t all that dumb because they are the ones buying the big German ones. That’s the essence of the article anyway.

Inexplicable, really. German intellectuals everywhere are aghast at the United States failing to do what it is supposed to do yet again. Despite Der Spiegel‘s recent pronouncemnt of the end of US-Amerika as we know it (in black and white and color too), US-Amerikaner are suddenly buying big fat politically correct automobiles as if there were no tomorrow.

Or maybe that is the explanation. Perhaps this is our last collective gasp as a nation before the whole culture (excuse me, I meant lack of culture) implodes with a tremendous groan and rolls over to die, I dunno, in Nevada or someplace. Everybody must sense instinctively that this will be our last chance to drive off into the sunset of our American oblivion in our monstrous ‘merican automobiles in hyper-heroic, High Noon style.

Or maybe… Maybe the experts at Der Spiegel (and experts in general) are just too stupid to poor piss out of a boot.

Der Autoabsatz in den USA boomt.

Now if they could only get the Bundeswehr to misbehave this badly with the Taliban whenever they come around

January 25, 2011 By in Higher Education, History, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The German Navy has this quaint little training ship called the Gorch Fock with this quaint long tradition blah, blah, blah but now it’s coming out that these sailor/soldiers are acting quite scandalous these days (like sailor/soldiers in other countries are actually expected to act) and so Defense Minister zu Guttenberg has pulled the plug on the ship’s captain way down in Argentina and has ordered an investigation and holy shit let’s call the whole thing off.

The Gorch Fock (some are now calling it Germany’s biggest floating brothel) appears to have become the one place where modern German military types have lost all sense of inhibation and political correctness and where all kinds of bad misbehavior (of the non-German kind) is taking place big time. Scandalous, never-heard-of-things-happening-with-German-sailors-at-sea before have been hitting the fan. Here are just a few to name just a few:

The sailors on the Gorch Fock drink lots of alcohol on board.
The boy sailors are always hitting on the girl sailors really hard, sometimes on the other boy soldiers too.
The officers yell at the sealors a lot and often hurt their feelings, sometimes even “insulting” them.
Then there’s that bizarre ritual of eating raw pig’s liver and washing it down with even more alcohol.
And the drop-the-soap games in the shower.
And the freakin’ Aryan Brotherhood dudes on board.
Oh yeah, and mutiny and stuff like that too.
And, of course, the two women who have recently died on board under somewhat mysterious circumstances.

I think all of this is being caused by having to sail around the world in an old ass ship like that. But maybe that’s just me. Or maybe they’ve just got scurvy or something.

Today a 70-page annual report on the armed forces criticised the “inexperienced” officer class for not possessing “the knowledge and intuition to realise when the line has been crossed into criminality.”

If I wanted to find a friend I’d buy a dog

January 24, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Bowing to excessively strict German privacy law pressure, Facebook has grudgingly agreed to allow German users to protect their email contacts from unwanted social network solicitations that could lead to possible “friendships” or other related gross infringements of privacy.

Although there are more than 10 million Facebook users in Germany, none of them appear to be particularly friendly, much less know one another, nor do they “get” the Facebood Friend Finder concept in the first place, nor want to, because we’re not kids anymore damn it and we are all perfectly aware of what these so-called “friendships” are all about and where they eventually lead to and if any one of us wanted a find a friend he or she would go to the local pound and buy a freakin’ dog like God had intended us to.

“We are pleased that we have come to a solution with the Hamburg DPA regarding concerns about Friend Finder and look forward to continue our constructive discussions and dialogue in the future,” although they weren’t particularly friendly.

“The United States of Hate”

January 10, 2011 By in Hate, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , 10 Comments

This is the seventh article like this I’ve seen just today. I guess they’re going to be milking this one for the next week or two at least.

“In the crosshairs of hate,” “rightwing preachers of hate,” “Sarah Palin in particular has been taking aim at her,” blah, blah, blah.

I find this obsessive need to politicize a tragedy like this beneath contempt.

This is all too Kindergarten for me, in other words–only kids in kindergarden behave better. I’m taking a few days off.

“Hier tobt der hysterische Kampf zwischen Rechts und Links besonders heftig.”

What do Mark Twain and Germany have in common?

January 7, 2011 By in Higher Education, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

I dunno. Mark Twain liked that awful German language, I guess. And of course the German language has often been “sanitized” in the past, just like Mark Twain’s English is getting sanitized right now.

This makes me angry. And sad. Because, well, it’s so sad. And the people doing it are so clueless. Or, worse still, they are perfectly aware of what they are doing.

Just in case you might care, here are some thoughts on Politically Correct English from David Foster Wallace that I, for one, find very interesting indeed:

“Traditionally, Prescriptivists tend to be political conservatives and Descriptivists tend to be liberals. But today’s most powerful influence on the norms of public English is actually a stern and exacting form of liberal Presciptivism. I refer to Politically Correct English (PCE).”

“The same ideological principles that informed the original Descriptivist revolution–namely, the rejections of traditional authority (born of Vietnam) and of traditional inequality (born of the civil rights movement)–have now actually produced a far more inflexible Prescriptivism, one largely unencumbered by tradition or complexity and backed by the threat of real-world sanctions (termination, litigation) for those who fail to conform.”

“PCE’s various pre- and proscriptions are taken very seriously indeed by colleges and corporations and government agencies, whose institutional dialects now evolve under the beady scrutiny of a whole new kind of Language Police.”

“PCE is not just silly but ideologically confused and harmful to its own cause.”

“PCE’s core fallacy is that a society’s mode of expression is productive of its attitudes rather than a product of these attitudes.”

“PCE purports to be the dialect of progressive reform but is in fact–in its Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself–of vastly more help to conservatives and the US status quo than traditional prescriptions ever were.”

If interested, take a look at Authority And American Usage (pages 110 and 111 or thereabout) in Consider The Lobster.

“Many thinkers and bloggers are understandably aghast at this Ministry of Truth-style fiddling with a classic text.”

Mind Bombs and Messiahs

January 5, 2011 By in Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

When Germans start calling for a new messiah, I, for one, start paying close attention. I even went as far as to read this Spiegel article in its entirety, which, needless to say, doesn’t happen very often.

Trying desperately to stop the current worldwide media trend away from climate issues, concerned environmentalists everywhere are trying desperately to get everybody else concerned about the climate again without appearing to be trying to do so so desperately, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Well it’s not working for me.

The Spiegel‘s panicked and pitiful analysis of what might maybe out to be done to re-kick-start an issue that seems to have sputtered out unexpectedly clearly demonstrates the current greenish cluelessness regarding the, uh, non-matter. To sum it up:

Mind bombs (highly emotional images “that reduce a complex problem down to one core message” — think drowning polar bears) aren’t working. So we need better ones (?).

A new kind of journalism is suddenly necessary (duh) and that’s why “climate activists have begun directing millions in funding into training programs.” What they could possibly be teaching these re-programed journalists is unclear at this time (I thought striving to uncover the truth had been a good enough method up until now, but that’s just me).

And then came “think smaller,” “get quiter” and “more sex.” Finally, something we can all agree upon.

Zu guter Letzt (and last but not least), finally, that disturbing paragraph about “the search for a new messiah.” Talk about creepy. They even mentioned Al Gore. I can share their pain though, in a way, because let’s face it, who on God’s Green Earth have they possibly got left? Julian Assange is currently, well, detained and the President of the United States has already fired his environmental (and every other kind of) round and is so no longer available that it’s not even funny.

If any of you out there have any suggestions as to who might be the next best messiah guy or gal out there, please let me know. Or better yet, pass your suggestions on to somebody who actually cares.

“British science magazine Nature identified two reasons for this loss of credibility. One was mistakes, made public around a year ago, in the UN’s 2007 climate report. The other was the so-called “Climategate” scandal involving the e-mails stolen from the climate researchers at the University of East Anglia.”

PS: I think they ought to maybe go with Focus Magazine’s new marketing strategy (see above) and start selling climate change as some really way cool and wonderful thing.

They don’t call it the S(tress)-Bahn here for nothing

January 4, 2011 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Only in Berlin? I’m not so sure. Remember way back when (getting on two years ago) when the Berliner S-Bahn commuter trains had to go on a Notfahrplan (emergency schedule) bis auf Weiteres (until further notice) because of massive problems they were having with their brakes (they hadn’t been checked or maintained properly)?

Remember then about a year or so later when there was a Not-Notfahrplan (emergency emergency schedule) for the same S-Bahn system when something called “winter” hit?

Well winter has struck yet again and we now have our next Not-Notfahrplan (irregular, 20-minute intervals for the few trains that are still running–about 200 of a 500 fleet) and there’s no end in sight. Two years on, people.

It’s not all that out of the ordinary if you stop to think about it, really. German Baustellen (construction sites) are generally built to last. And to last and to last and to last. And we have to be fair here too when it comes to these difficult winter conditions: Germany isn’t a country that has ever had to deal with things like “snow” in the past, you know–or at least that’s what one must assume.

Personally, I’m confident that these trains will all be up and running on regular schedule next year. In the spring of 2012, I mean.

“Because we can’t remember the hard winters of the 1970s, we resort to the word ‘chaos.'”

Germans Prepare For Next Hi-Tech Threat That Isn’t Quite There Yet But Threatens On The Horizon Already Anyway So-To-Speak

December 27, 2010 By in Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , 4 Comments

Or threatens in front of your bedroom window, or could. Potentially, I mean.

The ghastly Google Street View Scare hardly verdaut (digested), Germans everywhere are now about to be threatened by the threat of threatening private “mini me” drones which will soon be everywhere, omnipresent and ubiquitous, all at the same time, and will threaten German privacy in ways that haven’t even been imagined yet–but just be patient, they’re working on it.

Consumer Minister Ilse Aigner, along with the good folks over at the Left Party (of all people), are concerned that these new-fangled devices will soon be able to break privacy laws that, well, haven’t even been written yet either. But they’re working on that too.

Interestingly, the firm producing these things is located in a place called Kreuztal, in Germany (well I thought it was interesting). These babies are Made in Germany, in other words. So why all the excitement? Germans would never threaten German privacy like American Internet companies would, would they? I don’t know, maybe it’s more like “Be the first Spitzel (informer) on your block to have one!” kind of thing or something.

“Schon mit den kleinen helikopterähnlichen Hobby-Modellen kann man rechtlich schnell an Grenzen stoßen.”