Extension Extended
And it will extend on and on into the future indefinitely. These checks at the Austrian border are reality checks, you see.
Germany will extend temporary controls at its border with Austria for six months due to concerns the EU’s external frontiers are not sufficiently protected, the interior ministry said on Friday.
Germany coordinated the decision with Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, a ministry spokeswoman said. The Danish government made a similar announcement on Friday, citing the threat of terrorism.
Germany and other countries in Europe’s normally controls-free Schengen zone introduced emergency border controls in 2015 after more than 1 million refugees and migrants entered Europe.
German Of The Day: Überziehungskredit
That means overdraft credit. You know, when money is withdrawn from your bank account and the available balance goes below zero?
Sure comes in handy. Take this lady here. Please. She glanced at her banking app during breakfast one morning and was rather surprised to discover that the grocery store chain Rewe had just booked 8,590,000,000.42 euros from her account – with a friendly “Rewe says thanks!”
After some quick calculations she realized that a mistake had been made. Accidents will happen, folks.
Bank zieht Frau vermeintlich acht Milliarden Euro ab.
Irresistible Filth?
I guess that’s one thing you could call it.
As previously reported, the Germans are having big problems meeting their ambitious CO2 emissions targets these days. One of the reasons for this dirty little secret – after having turned off most of their nuclear power plants due to a tsunami in Japan (don’t ask) – is their burning need to burn dirty, filthy, dreckig brown coal, aka lignite.
It is mined in vast, open pits that devour landscapes and villages, leaving Martian vistas of desolation roamed by gigantic excavators straight out of “Mad Max”.
Brown coal made up about 23% of the country’s energy supply last year, and black coal another 14%, according to the Economy Ministry. Renewable energy sources made up 33%—up from 6% in 2000.
Hey, whatever gets you through the dark as black coal night.
“The image of Germany as a country leading on the renewable energy transition is very, very wrong,”
Reality Can Be Like That
Germany’s green dreams run into climate change reality – Berlin’s commitment to stay nuclear free complicates Europe’s push to lower emissions.
The contradictions in Germany’s energy policy are coming home to roost.
It’s struggling to balance efforts to combat climate change while at the same time shutting down its nuclear power plants.
Don’t sweat it, Germany. If you need any advice on how to improve things in the CO2 department just contact the folks in Washington.
“The rushed and improvised exit from nuclear power that some support is not our policy. Recent events prove that pretending otherwise is a pure illusion.”
German Of The Day: Korruption
That means corruption. It’s a foreign word here, though.
Unless, of course, you’re talking about VW, Daimler, BMW, Audi…
Now it’s out that Audi tampered with the chassis numbers of their test vehicles to hamper the emissions scandal investigation going on in Korea. And it looks like this was all directed from Germany.
Please note: The next time Germans get morally outraged about the next big moral outrage in US-Amerika – and it won’t be long – remember that absolutely nobody here in Germany pays the slightest attention to any of this dieselgate made in Germany crime and corruption stuff. They’re all serfs owned by the German automobile industry.
Audi hat jahrelang Fahrgestellnummern von Testautos gefälscht und so die Aufklärung des Abgasskandals in Korea behindert. Die Vorgänge wurden offenbar von Deutschland aus gesteuert.
Der Spiegel Analyzes The “Kavanaugh Disaster”
As only Der Spiegel can. And oddly, they almost got it right.
For one thing, they were honest enough to admit that it was a disaster – for them, of course – because “the President and the Republicans achieved a great victory.” And then they continue on with their five-point explanation of why this is such an awful, terrible and unspeakably bad thing.
1. Trumpism reigns. They got that right, too.
2. The Kavanaugh nomination was a farce. They almost got that right. The nomination itself wasn’t a farce, of course, but the freak show that accompanied it most certainly was.
3. Consensus culture is a foreign word. Absolutely correct. Take Germany, for instance, where they call it Konsenskultur. Every German knows that there is no consensus when it comes to Angela Merkel’s migrant madness meltdown, for example, but the difference between Germany and US-Amerika here is that the Germans behave as if there is. Germans normally being the all too direct ones, it is the Americans this time who make no qualms about how divided they are in Trump America.
4. There are no clear rules for dealing with accusations. Not true. Making false accusations, like the ones made against Kavanaugh here, is against the law. American laws allow those falsely accused of a crime to pursue a course of action in court, generally based on defamation of character. And this, I believe, needs to be done here.
5. The Supreme Court is now in a real mess. Well, they got the mess part right, I guess. But the Supreme Court mess is now in the process of being cleaned up, although there is certainly still quite a bit of work yet to do.
All in all, a solid job, Spiegel journalists. I’ll give you a seven for your five points this time. Keep the change.
Mit der Wahl von Donald Trumps Kandidaten Brett Kavanaugh zum Richter auf Lebenszeit am Supreme Court haben der US-Präsident und die Republikaner einen großen Erfolg errungen.
Marlene S.
There Is A Certain Logic To It
Jews joining the AfD? Well…
It is the only political party in Germany that declares “Jew-hatred” as “inseparable” from Islam, and says out-loud that Islamic religious dogma is “incompatible with the German constitution”.
That is Dimitri Schulz’s view of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). A Jew who was born in the Soviet Union and came to Germany with his parents as a small child, Mr Schulz is one of a small band of Jewish AfD supporters who see the party as a bulwark against the Islamic threat to Europe.
Warum sollten Juden politisch reifer sein?
The Natives Are Getting Restless
The Empress of Germany/Europe is getting headwinds from members of her own party. Of all mere people.
Two relatively unknown CDU politicians are planning to challenge Angela Merkel for the position of party chairwoman of the CDU during the party’s conference this coming December. Only the winner would then be referred to as the party “chairman” if elected. But still.
How rude. She’s only been in the highest echelon of the CDU for eighteen years (and chancellor since 2005). More respect, please. She’s like, I dunno, the Robert Mugabe of Europe. Never touch a running system and all that. Not even when they’re non-running ones.
“Mir ist bewusst, dass es keine Wahl auf Augenhöhe sein wird. Dennoch ist dieser Schritt notwendig.”
