It’s A Cultural Thing

December 2, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness Tags: Crime, Culture, German, Germans, Germany, Islam, Murder, Religion 5 Comments

Pakistani-German couple in Darmstadt sentenced to life for killing their daughter

A Pakistani-German couple has been convicted of killing their daughter on religious grounds after she slept with her boyfriend. The teenager was strangled and dumped in a nearby forest.

In case you didn’t know, this kind of thing is referred to as an “honor” killing.

And by the way, there is no such thing as a life sentence in Germany. Life means fifteen years here.

Lawyers for the defense argued that despite being in Germany for twenty-eight years, the husband was “not properly socialized” in German culture and his wife “had nothing to do with the normal world.”

German Of The Day: Massenschlägerei

December 1, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Immigration, Language, Migrants, Refugees, Syria Leave a comment

That means a mass brawl or free-for-all. Like the ones that took place between refugees in Berlin (and elsewhere) last weekend.

So here’s the first predictable reaction in the German media: What have we (the Germans) done wrong to have caused this?

It must get tiring always having to be in the wrong, don’t you think? My own personal theory here is that these refugees just aren’t that much into other refugees anymore.

Meanwhile… When not beating each other up in refugee centers, it appears that these folks are being singled out for recruitment by radical Islamists. Jeepers. Who would have thought that?

“You can’t put Afghans, Syrians and Eritreans in the same place because they hate each other.”

When In Doubt Just Say No

November 30, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Cities, German, Germans, Germany, Hamburg, Olympics 2024, Referendums, Sports Leave a comment

Nein, nein, nein, already. Nolympics in Hamburg, either.

As you can see up there, Hamburgers were too afraid that the Olympics they decided not to bid to host for yesterday would have brought more police brutality, more barbed wire fences, more school crossing cops escorting people to airports, more big nasty retro surveillance cameras and more US-Amerikan Yankee dollars coming out of the chimney of some Hamburger’s house in a really weird surrealistic fashion (causing particularly nasty air pollution, I assume?).

Put in that light I think it was the sound decision to make.

Let’s see, Munich said no, Berlin said no and now Hamburg says no. I think a pattern is starting to develop here. Boston, too, said no, of course (are there really that many Bostonians of German extraction?). What a minute. Has hosting the Olympics now become some new form of cruel and unusual punishment or something? Maybe we could get ISIS to put in a bid.

“Die Menschen sehen, dass es Sachen gibt, wo das Geld besser angelegt ist.”

Günther Has Left The Building

November 29, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: Architecture, Berlin, Buildings, Engineering, Gasometer, Günther Jauch, German, Germans, Germany, Media, News, Spaceships, Talk Shows, Technology, TV 3 Comments

You know, just like Elvis used to? Only in this case Günther has left the Gasometer. Or will have left it, a bit later tonight.

Don’t ask. This is the spaceship thingy inside Schöneberg’s Gasometer (taken out of service in 1995 – the Gasometer, not the spaceship) where Gunther Jauch has been holding his popular Sunday evening political talk show on German Channel One (Das Erste) since 2011. And he’s done a pretty good job at it, I think, Gasometer spaceship or not.

Another era has come to an end or something. He will be replaced by Anne Will whom he replaced in 2011. Don’t ask. It’s a German öffentlich-rechtlich TV (“public sector” or state TV, if you prefer) kind of thang.

So, Anne Will (her last name could be translated as “wants to,” if you wanted to): May the talk be with you.

Am Ende war es ein eher kurzes Gastspiel für Günther Jauch in der ARD: An diesem Sonntag lädt der Moderator zum letzten Mal als Polittalker ins Berliner Gasometer. Für Jauch könnte es der Einstieg in den Vorruhestand sein.

Soutien-G.

November 28, 2015 By Hermann Observer in High Art, Hotness Tags: France, Paris, Terror, Terrorists 1 Comment

Beautiful tricolor of the week.

Because somebody has to admire them.

German Of The Day: Aufklärungstornados

November 27, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Hi-tech, Hurt Feelings Tags: Bundeswehr, Defense, German, Germans, Germany, ISIS, Paris, Syria, Terror, Tornadoes 1 Comment

That means reconnaissance Tornadoes.

The Paris attacks brought changes: Germany has pledged “any form of support” to France in its fight against terrorism. Right now, it looks like the German military will deploy its Tornado reconnaissance jets…

Reconnaissance jets have already been used in international military missions, for example, in the Balkans and Afghanistan. There, up to six German Tornados supplied their NATO partners with information about Taliban positions. The pictures are taken with cameras attached to the fuselage of the fighter bombers. After the planes have completed their mission and landed, the film must be developed and analyzed, which takes some time, but the images have a much higher resolution and are much more detailed than other types of aerial photography.

Deutsche Fotos für den Luftkrieg der anderen

Happy Thanksgiving Or Something

November 26, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Commercials, Thanksgiving 1 Comment

Stress Lady Back With A Vengeance

November 25, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Health, Humor, Hypochondria, Polls, Sickness, Stress, Studies, Work Leave a comment

Just like she already was here and here and here and here. And here.

Jeepers. What took her so long this time? I mean, what with all of this refugee-terror-soccer-match-cancellation-stress going on around here these days.

But as it turns out, she and her German compatriots don’t seem to be all that stressed out about those kind of things, believe it or not (believe it).

The latest stress survey indicates, for instance, that about one quarter of all Germans are primarily stressed out about the kind of stress that they put themselves under. These are Germans stressed out about being , well, German, I guess you could say. Damn. I wouldn’t want to live under that kind of stress, either.

Some 19 percent are stressed out about not having enough money.

Around 15 percent need more sleep and early retirement, I assume, because having to work for a living is a really big stress factor for them.

And 14 percent are stressed out by not having enough time to do what they want to do. You know, like being more stressed out about stuff?

The Germans remaining, I assume, were not able to adequately stress through verbal communication just how stressed out they really, truly are.

Wie die GfK in einer am Mittwoch veröffentlichten Umfrage herausgefunden hat, stellt der Druck, den man sich selbst macht, die hauptsächliche Stress-Ursache bei den Deutschen dar.

German Of The Day: Getarnt

November 24, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Ahmad Almohammad, Bavaria, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Paris, Terror, Terrorists 4 Comments

That means disguised. You know, like the three terrorists from Paris who presumably made their way through Europe disguised as refugees? Now it’s out that at least one of them traveled through Germany.

Take this guy here, Ahmad Almohammad, one of the three who blew themselves up in front of the Stade de France. The latest reports indicate that he was in Bavaria at the end of October.

Alarming? Not alarming enough if you watch the news here. Making a big deal out of something like this would only unsettle the public.

“Zu laufenden Ermittlungsverfahren erteilen wir keine Auskünfte.”

Speaking Of Heroes

November 23, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Ahmad Manour, Berlin, Books, Generation Allah, German, Germans, Germany, Identity, Islam, Terror, Terrorism Leave a comment

Or the lack of them…

This guy seems to think there’s a lack of them, too. Ahmad Manour is a group manager at the Heroes Project in Berlin and a family counselor at Hayat, an advisory body for de-radicalization.

The degree of Islamist radicalization among the youth in Germany is underestimated. He chose the title “Generation Allah” for his recently published book because “I find that there is an incredible number of young people here who believe in things like conspiracy theories, harbor anti-Semitic thoughts and don’t think along democratic lines. The Islamic religion is the only thing they have that conveys identity for these young people.”

“It’s also important that in view of Islamic terror Muslims ask themselves how such a monster could come to life among us.”

Im politischen Raum sei eine “gewisse Planlosigkeit” im Umgang mit dem Problem erkennbar.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”