Speaking Of The Energiewende…

Or German energy turnaround… It’s really working great!

Strom

The price of electricity for private households in Germany has gone up 38 percent since 2008.

It’s easy to do, all you other countries out there. Just follow Germany’s example and shut down all of your nuclear power plants in a panic and then force through the construction of renewable wind and solar energy plants that are neither energy nor cost-efficient enough and then have them heavily subsidized by these households. That turns things around in no time.

Der Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft (BDEW) erklärte, der starke Anstieg der staatlich verordneten Steuern, Abgaben und Umlagen in den vergangenen Jahren sei der Grund für den Anstieg der Strompreise für Haushaltskunden. «Hinzu kommen die gestiegenen Kosten für den Netzausbau, der mit dem weiteren Ausbau der erneuerbaren Energien notwendig ist», sagte ein Sprecher des BDEW in Berlin.

Germans Aren’t Scaredy-Cats

They’re Fear Rabbits (Angsthasen).

Angst

And what’s the number one angst in Germany these days? Ukraine? Ebola? Nope. Money. Money, the environment and health, in that order.

“The majority of Germans are afraid the Eurozone crisis will hit tax payers hard and that the cost of living is rising.”

Im westlichen Kokon scheint der Blick gelegentlich getrübt – ein wenig mehr Realismus könnte den Deutschen nicht schaden.

Uber And Out

It’s new, it promotes competition, it has something to do with the Internetz and it’s American. It just has to be verboten.

Taxis

The ride-hailing service Uber is about to have a head-on collision with Germany’s taxis and legal system. A court in Frankfurt has banned Uber’s most popular service from operating in the country until a hearing this year on whether it unfairly competes with local taxis.

It’s like this: Whatever is not expressly permitted in this country is strictly forbidden.

Es würden gegen Entgelt Personen befördert, „ohne im Besitz einer Genehmigung nach dem Personenbeförderungsgesetz zu sein.“

PS: Or maybe everyone’s pissed because they spelled Uber wrong?

Arctic Sea Ice Spiral Of Death?

Wat dann nun (well which one is it then)? Satellite images show that “the Arctic ice crust is melting faster than expected“or

Polar Bear

stunning satellite images show summer ice cap is thicker and covers 1.7 million square kilometres more than 2 years ago.”

I know. It must be both.

The speech by former US Vice-President Al Gore was apocalyptic. ‘The North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff,’ he said. ‘It could be completely gone in summer in as little as seven years. Seven years from now.’ Those comments came in 2007 as Mr Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaigning on climate change.

PS: The Ozone Hole is also doing really poorly these days and will soon disappear completely. Ozone scientists are therefore justifiably worried about what to worry about next.

Olympia Opponents Worried Berlin Too Poor (But Sexy) To Pay

Germans in general are famous for being against stuff that isn’t even there to be against yet. But Berliners in particular take it up a notch and like being against the very thought of the idea of the stuff that isn’t even there to be against yet.

Olympia

Take Berlin’s candidacy for the 2024 Olympic Games, for instance. The one that hasn’t even been applied for yet, I mean. A group calling itself NOlympia is absolutely against this non-candidacy business because the non-application itself would cost a whopping 50 million euros alone. Once it were to be a real application, I mean.

And that would only be the start, people. The Olympics here would be an economic catastrophe, meltdown, debacle, or cataclysm even. Like the finances in Berlin are already, for instance. Sure, Berlin may be able to afford an 850 quadrazillion euro airport that still hasn’t been built yet but 50 million for the chance to have your town host the Olympics is absolutely out of the question for anyone out there with even just a little bit of common economic sense.

Do you have any idea what the Olympics would do to the real estate prices in this city, for instance? That’s right. It would increase the value of real estate in Berlin dramatically. And what city could possibly want something like that to happen?

No, no, no. It’s better to say no first and ask questions later. We no what we are doing and there’s no time to lose. Just say no. No tengo dinero. No we can’t already!

“Der olympische Spitzensport lässt sich nicht ökologisch oder nachhaltig bewerten.”

Togetherness

SPD party whip Thomas Oppermann has found it necessary to interrupt his clearly less than busy summer vacation to explain to Germans who already know that it is the United States ITSELF that is directly responsible for the rise of the ISIS terrorist group and their atrocities in Iraq.

Oppermann

The American intervention and overthrow of Saddam Hussein ten years ago, so the reasoning goes, ruined the “togetherness” that had predominated under the peoples and religions down there up until then. While their fearless leader was still around to take care of things like togetherness and stuff like that, I mean. Whatever.

But not to worry, folks. Six (that’s the number between five and seven) German soldiers have now been sent to the area to calm things down and clean things up.

Personally, I think that this guy needs to extend his vacation another month. He’s obviously stressed out and can’t see very clearly at the moment. Not only do Germans get terribly stressed out just watching TV (while on vacation or otherwise), a new study also indicates that the enormous stress Germans are generally under can lead to vision impairment, too.

Die US-Intervention habe das Miteinander der Völker und Religionen im Irak zerstört.

If BND Spying On Turkey Is “Necessary”…

Then NSA spying on Germany most certainly is.

Turkey

The German government faced an angry reaction from Turkey and accusations of hypocrisy from its own opposition on Monday after media reports that its intelligence agency spied on its NATO ally.

“Dass ein geheimer Nachrichtendienst dort Erkenntnisse sammelt, kann man ihm nicht vorwerfen. Das ist seine Aufgabe.”

“Friends Don’t Spy On Friends”

Somebody said that once, not all to0 long ago, after some NSA Aufregung (excitement) about something somewhere. I forget where. But I couldn’t agree more. So, uh, where’s the outrage now?

Turkey

Now that Germany’s intelligence agency BND has revealed that NATO ally Turkey is one of five countries it is spying on, I mean.

Outrage won’t be necessary this time, I guess. It appears that Germany is finally coming clean and ready to admit to the world that Turkey has officially reached non-friend status so spying in this case is allowed.

Hey, what goes around comes around.

The news reports (of NSA spying in Germany) outraged Germans, leading to favorable attitudes about the United States falling to their lowest levels in years and creating a public and private sense of mistrust. Merkel has repeatedly called the U.S. spy program a breach of trust and noted that “friends don’t spy on friends.”

German Of The Day: “Sowas sagt man nicht!”

That’s no way to talk!

DGB

Just ask this lady here. Her name is Gitta Connemann and she is a member of German parliament (CDU) who just got uninvited as the main speaker at an anti-war event sponsored by the big German DGB union for making Israel-friendly comments. And they were shocking as hell, too.

This broad actually had the nerve to say “Every death is one too many but Israel has been shot at since 2006 and has the right to protect itself.”

What on earth was she thinking? Political sensitivity is clearly not her cup of chai.

“Jeder Tote ist zu viel. Aber seit 2006 wird Israel beschossen und hat ein Recht auf Selbstverteidigung.”

“How Realistic Is An Anti-Stress Law?”

Well, in the real world… Not at all. But here in Germany…

Stress

Employment minister Andrea Nahles (SPD) wants to review the situation to see if an anti-stress law can be introduced. The number of stress-related illnesses continues to rise in this country.

If this wasn’t so funny it would be serious. The problem is that nobody who reads this here is laughing. That makes this much more serious than I thought. Which isn’t funny.

Die SPD und Gewerkschaften fordern erneut eine gesetzliche Anti-Stress-Verordnung. Kann gesetzlich geregelt werden, dass der Chef seine Mitarbeiter nicht anrufen darf?