Category Archives: Hysteria

“Germany does not back down…

September 8, 2010 By in High Art, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

in the face of threats from Islamist fanatics.” That’s strange, I thought they did that kind of thing all the time.

Anyways, Angela Merkel will be speaking tonight at the M100 Media Prize award ceremony in which Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard will be honored.

You know, for freedom of the press or something like that? That’s right, this is the guy who drew some cartoons a few years back that offended Muslims worldwide because they, well, actually, I still don’t really see why. But maybe that’s just me.

And now, five years later, the Chancellor of Germany, “by having her photo taken next to Kurt Westergaard,” will be taking “a huge risk.” Hey, no risk no fun, right?

“Die Auszeichnung Westergaards ist in dieser aufgeladenen und erhitzten Zeit hochproblematisch.”

At least it wasn’t communist pornography

September 7, 2010 By in Higher Education, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

This has got to be the most insidious commi plot yet, or even ever. The German Communist Party in Essen (yes, it actually still exists) handed out pens to six-year-old kids that can project erotic images of women on walls and, well, I dunno, all over. And like, they even did it by accident.

Damn. I remember being pretty excited on my first day at school and all that but this really takes the cake, or Kuchen, if you prefer.

This truly is shocking and obscene. No, not the part about the pens so much (German sex ed starts really early over here anyway), I mean that the German Communist Party was allowed to hand out anything to six-year-old kids like that in the first place.

“The German Communist Party deeply regrets what has happened and is outraged that this kind of thing, which borders on pornography, can be purchased in normal shops.”

So like sack me already

September 5, 2010 By in Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Fire Thilo Sarrazin if you want to, but don’t be surprised if he calls on Angela Merkel to be a star witness during his next political show trial.

“If German President Christian Wulff approves his sacking in the next few days, the decision would be overturned by the justice system.”

“The president will have to consider carefully whether he wants to see this political show trial to its end, and then see his decision thrown out by the courts.”

“This is a big problem and we can talk about it openly, without arousing suspicions of xenophobia.” Hmm, so let’s not talk (or do anything about) it, right?

Before and after

August 29, 2010 By in History, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Same newspaper, same issue, same photographer. Only this story…

is about the ultra-conservative religious and rassist Tea Party wacko right attacking our (as in Germany’s) President Obama himself.

And this one…

meanders around a bit before coming to the stunning conclusion that this grass-roots conservative movement is much more diverse and multilayered (and larger) than European observers have perceived it to be up until now.

Funny how newspapers can be like that, online or not. Maybe it was a slow news day. But was that second article absolutely necessary? That kind of stuff only confuses folks once they’ve read the first article, well, first.

Die gibt es natürlich darunter, doch das konservative Sammelbecken ist vielschichtiger als man in Europa bisweilen wahrnimmt.

I like this guy

August 23, 2010 By in Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

He’s so… German. You know, so provocative? I mean so Besserwisser-like (know-it-all) provocative? And in this case it’s all the more provocative because he’s provoking other Germans. You may not agree with everything this guy has to say, but it’s hard not to like someone who so clearly bends over backwards to be poltitically incorrect. And this is somebody from the SPD, mind you.

German Central Bank board member and former Berlin finance boss Thilo Sarrazin is now bringing out a book called “Germany is Abolishing Itself” in which, among other things, he warns of foreign infiltration/domination in Deutschland (wow, that’s a new one) – only this time of the Muslim kind. Yikes. The International Jewish Conspiracy is an established fact. But now the freakin’ Muslims are moving in? Like, I had no idea.

Die reine Lust an der Provokation treibe ihn zu „immer fragwürdigeren und menschenverachtenden Aussagen.“

If Google won’t get you, Facebook will

August 19, 2010 By in Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Just when Germany thought it was finally getting Google under control (sort of), freakin’ Facebook comes along with a brand new service that will be able to locate mobile Facebook Germans faster than you can say hide-and-seek.

Of course Facebook Places users would have to want to use this service first and sign up for it and all that, but what’s that got to do with it? It’s the principle of the matter – I think.

After all, even if German Facebook users would want to be found by others they shouldn’t be allowed to be, because… Well, should they? What happens then?

This is really starting to get diabolical, I tell you. I think it’s the Brain Police.

Die Frage “Wo bist du?” wird man wohl künftig immer seltener hören.

Street View II

August 11, 2010 By in Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 11 Comments

Or 2.0? The saga continues. Pack your canned goods and potable water, Germany. Street View is coming doch (after all).

But this time you don’t have to worry about lack of privacy and criminal abuse and all that stuff. This time it’s going to be a German kinda Street View thang.

Not only will the faces of individuals and license plates and street addresses be blurred out, German Street View is going to blurr out the houses and the streets, entire neighborhoods, cities, mountains, lakes and streams and other prominent geographical landmarks including some of our planet’s smaller oceans too – but they were kind of blurry to begin with anyway, so there.

People can also ask to have images of their homes removed from the database starting next week – a move aimed at dispelling privacy fears.

The weatherman’s out!

August 2, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

And he’s guilty until proven guilty. Lock your doors already.

They’re going at him big time too, although everything you read about the ex-girfriend’s allegations of rape sounds pretty, uh, flaky at best. And I hate weathermen too. Man oh man, this one’s going to go on forever.

“Wir nehmen gerade die Hauptverhandlung vorweg.”

This blame game is lame

August 1, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, History, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

What a shame.

Ever wonder about blame? About the need to find someone or something to blame for tragic incidents that just plain happen in what some might claim to be an indifferent world?

Finding blame is very important in Germany for some inexplicable reason (not all that inexplicable really, if you stop and think about it for a bit). It’s not a terribly productive process, however. Especially when the individual being sought out for blame this time can in no way be held responsible for the awful thing that happened.

Like I said, what a shame, whoever or whatever to blame or not. As one Stoic philosopher has written:

“Small-minded people habitually reproach others for their own misfortunes. Average people reproach themselves. Those who are dedicated to a life of wisdom understand that the impulse to blame something or someone is foolishness, that there is nothing to be gained in blaming, whether it be others or oneself.”

But hey, impulse is impulse and this impulse is pulsing quiet strongly in Germany right now.

Maybe they ought to do it like the old Israelites did and symbolically load up a goat (or a wild boar in this case?) with these particular sins and let him loose in the German wilderness for atonement. Oh, you’re right. They already are. Sort of.

Now he is a pariah, holed up in his office and protected day and night by the police. Mr. Sauerland no longer sleeps at home; he has received several death threats and members of his family members, fearing for their safety, have left town.

The only good genetically modified potato…

July 29, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Is a dead genetically modified potato!

“After two decades of research efforts, BASF’s biotechnologists using genetic engineering succeeded in creating a potato, named Amflora, where the gene responsible for the synthesis of amylose has been turned off and thus the potato is unable to synthesize the undesirable substance, amylose.”

This means that, uh, hell if I know. But neither do the pissed off environmentalist anti-Amflora types in northern Germany who just raided that potato field up there. That didn’t stop them from getting in a rage and ripping those perilous plants out by their rapacious roots. Not until they got busted by the Plant Police, I mean.

“Gendreck weg!”