Beautiful German of the week.
Because somebody has to admire them.
PS: Here’s another German Word of the Day for you: Wohlfühlstagnation. That’s a word construction by the FDP’s Christian Lindner referring to the current CDU/SPD coalition government and the “feel-good stagnation” they have now put the country in.
That means “nerve saw” or annoying person. And heaven knows that Claudia Roth of the German Greens has spent an entire career making a name for herself in that department.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung even once referred to her as the “Mother of All Nerve Saws.” But that was then and this is now. She has clearly mellowed out now that she just turned 60 (today). Now it’s more like she just gnaws on your nerves.
Happy Birthday, Claudia!
Selbst Etiketten wie “Mutter aller Nervensägen”, wie die “FAZ” einmal schrieb, ärgern die streitbare Politikerin nicht. Im Gegenteil: Im Bundestagswahlkampf 2013 griff sie das Thema selbstironisch auf, eine Parteikampagne für mehr weibliche Mitglieder warb mit dem Spruch: “Wer nervt mehr als Claudia?”
More budding crime in Kreuzberg. I bet the Greens planted this stuff. Or maybe some other dope. What a bunch of crackpots.
Kreuzberg is a really seedy district, you know. And these weren’t even potted plants. They just found this stuff among the weeds. I tell you, this town is really going to pot…
I got a million of ’em, folks!
Dass in Berlin-Kreuzberg öffentlich ein Joint geraucht wird, ist nichts Besonderes. Aber bei mehreren hundert Cannabis-Pflanzen auf einer öffentlichen Grünanlage wird dann selbst in Berlin die Polizei aktiv.
China and Russia are the most avid intelligence gatherers in Germany, says Hans-Georg Maassen, head of Germany’s intelligence agency.
But like, who cares about that? That’s beside the point or something. We Germans are empört (appalled) about this Skandal (scandal) and we’re going to stay that way, damn it.
Liebe Deutsche, findet euch damit ab, dass ihr ausspioniert werdet!
That’s what Germans are. Or at least one out of eight Germans are these days: Disabled.
Not only are they getting more and more old and gray and in the way, they also seem to be doing so less gracefully.
Funny how the number could be so high here so quickly though, don’t you think (up 7 percent since 2009)? This couldn’t be another popular scam for some, could it? I’m so ashamed. How could I even think of such a thing?
Whatever it is, it reminds me of a German oddity I have observed here in Berlin: Oddity 168. If there were only two Germans left on earth, one would try to take advantage of the other by pulling out his “Schwerbeschädigter Ausweis” or disabled person ID. I was boarding a bus in Berlin once when two passengers got into a real argument over one of the seats reserved for the disabled by waving around their IDs and yelling back and forth at each other about who was the more disabled of the two. It came dangerously close to a real brawl. That made me wonder. Would the winner of the fight have then been disqualified for no longer being the most disabled one?
Gegenüber 2009 ist die Zahl der Menschen mit Behinderung um 7 Prozent beziehungsweise 673.000 Personen gestiegen.
Or so it goes with SPD these days.
Germany’s Social Democrats, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition partners, on Sunday suffered their worst-ever electoral setback in regional polls in Bremen, raising questions about party leader Sigmar Gabriel’s hopes of gaining ground nationally on Ms Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats.
So sehen Sieger aus (this is what winners look like):
In Bremen ändern 6,5 Prozent für die FDP nicht viel. Im Bund aber eröffnet ihre Wiedererweckung Gedankenspiele für die Wahl 2017.
Germany is a superpower when it comes to setting ambitious goals. But it’s even better at burning coal.
Germany aims to generate 80% of its power from renewable sources by 2050 with nuclear being fully phased out by 2021. But given the costs associated with renewables and the challenge of replacing nuclear power efficiently, it is not clear that Germany will succeed in either of these goals…
The Germans have increasingly turned to coal as their power generation source of choice, especially U.S. coal. Today coal power plants are responsible for generating nearly half of Germany’s power, and numerous new plants are scheduled to come online in the next few years.
Overall, the increase in coal is likely to create a significant increase in airborne pollution and potentially stoke tension between Germany and its neighbors. But at the same time, if Germany wants to phase out nuclear power, coal is the only realistic option; a fact which some German politicians are starting to admit.
German marines have rescued 200 (now over 400) refugees shortly after launching two ships to scour waters between Africa and Europe.
The ship “Hessen” evacuated the boat in distress about 250 kilometers south of the Italian island Lampedusa. The refugees were brought to an Italian port, the German army said after discussions with Italian marine rescue officials.
The “Hessen,” along with the “Berlin,” also a Bundeswehr ship, were warned of a refugee distress situation on Monday morning. The ships had begun their search mission on Tuesday, when they sailed from Crete towards the sea area between Libya and Italy.
After years of close cooperation with the NSA, Germany’s BND has now suddenly reduced this cooperation upon finding out that the information they had been furnishing the NSA with was being used for espionage purposes.
“Who would have thought that?” asked one high-ranking German spy official with a paper bag on his head. “We all figured that that list of 40,000 selectors (IP addresses, search terms and names) we at the BND used on behalf of the NSA had some other justification. I dunno. I personally assumed they wanted to order pizza or something. But to go and spy on other folks like that? No way. We don’t want anything to do with that kind of Scheiße.”
It still remains to be seen whether this list can be released, as that depends on what arrangements were made with the US by the then government [of Gerhard Schröder] after the dramatic events of September 11.
Observing Hermann 