German Of The Day: Scherzkeks

February 6, 2015 By in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

A “joke cookie” here is what we call a wisecracker. You know, a jokester? Take this jokester here at Tegel Airport today (this guy really kills me).

Tegel

He’s getting ready to board his flight with his girlfriend for their vacation in Florida, right? So they’re having a look at his carry-on bag and he says – now get this – “There’s a bomb inside.” Funny. As. Scheiße! Don’t you think? And original, too. But the real punch line part only comes around a little later: He wasn’t allowed to take that flight, screws up his vacation, impresses his girlfriend big-time forever and then gets charged with another cool German word: Ordnungswidrigkeit (an administrative offense or infraction)! Hardy, har, har. Brilliant joke cookie stuff who needs the crackers?

Some people are just more funny than other people are, I’ve found. Evolution wants it that way or something.

Like this guy’s uncle here earlier in the week (I’m assuming of course it just has to be this guy’s uncle). He walked in through security control at Tegel with a revolver and 43 rounds of ammunition in his carry-on bag because – now get this – he didn’t know it was in there! Ha, ha. Apparently the bag had been given to him when his father died and he had never bothered to look inside before and just grabbed the thing at random when he needed a bag for his flight. Hilarious stuff.

But how on earth do they manage to think any of this up?

“Dieser sensible Sicherheitsbereich ist einfach kein Ort für schlechte Scherze.”

German-Americans So Well-Integrated They Make Other Americans Sick

February 5, 2015 By in Hard Facts, History, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

I mean, like what’s the point of coming to this country if you don’t even try to bore everybody with stories about your ethnic roots all the time? That’s totally un-American misbehavior, if you ask me. But German-Americans are that way. They’re different. They’re kind of like German-Germans, if you know what I’m saying. They’re tricky.

Map

German-Americans are America’s largest single ethnic group (if you divide Hispanics into Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, etc). In 2013, according to the Census bureau, 46m Americans claimed German ancestry: more than the number who traced their roots to Ireland (33m) or England (25m). In whole swathes of the northern United States, German-Americans outnumber any other group (see map). Some 41% of the people in Wisconsin are of Teutonic stock.

Yet despite their numbers, they are barely visible. Everyone knows that Michael Dukakis is Greek-American, the Kennedy clan hail from Ireland and Mario Cuomo was an Italian-American. Fewer notice that John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky with presidential ambitions, are of German origin.

Please Come Back

February 4, 2015 By in Helections, High Art, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

We miss you. Or at least I do.

The FDP, the traditional king-maker in German politics, lost all of its seats in the national parliament in the 2013 election, leaving conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel little choice but to ally with the center-left Social Democrats. As part of their coalition pact, she also agreed to new laws, including a national minimum wage, that have angered business leaders…

An impromptu rant by Christian Lindner, the Free Democratic Party’s chairman, defending entrepreneurs and startup culture made it onto newspaper front pages here and became one of the most watched political speeches of recent months.

“If one succeeds, one ends up in the sights of the Social Democratic redistribution machinery and, if one fails, one can be sure of derision and mockery.”

Der FDP endlich Beine machen!

Muslim Preacher Dude Finally Starts Making Some Sense

February 3, 2015 By in Habitudes, Hate, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Otherwise known for his extremist views, Berlin Imam Sheikh Abdel Moez al-Eila has proclaimed that a wife should be confined to her husband’s home and should never refuse him sex.

Now he didn’t explicitly say that it had to be really good sex, too but some things kind of go without saying. Now that’s what I call old-time religion.

Claiming that when he first married his wife, she was “pretty and slim” and that she “used to say nice things to him,” al-Eila bemoans that he has been left with a “fat” wife with a “gloomy face.”

If a man is tempted by another woman who “arouses” him in the street, al-Eila claims that the Prophet Muhammad had the remedy when he apparently said that the man “…should go home quickly and have sex with his wife and Allah will immediately remove the urge from his heart.”

The Next Thing You Know They’ll Be Selling These On Ebay

February 2, 2015 By in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Germany’s utilities, battered by the country’s shift to wind turbines and solar panels, would be glad to sell you a power plant on the cheap. They’ll even pack it up and ship it to another country.

Power Plant

The two largest power producers, RWE AG and EON SE, are especially keen to sell their gas-fired plants, rendered uncompetitive by the rise of renewable energy on the one hand and record low coal prices on the other. It’s a relatively easy task to take them apart, move them by truck and ship and reassemble them elsewhere.

“There is a liquid global market for gas turbines. Transport costs are entirely marginal.”

Reproduction Regulators Recommend Rigorous Reform

February 1, 2015 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

The logic appears to go like this: Germans will only have children if they are paid by the state to do so.

Children

That this money must first be taken from them by the state to only later be given back to them if they behave properly (improperly?) is the first oddity here but not really the issue at the moment – or at least not the one German politicians want to talk about. The problem now is that Germans aren’t having enough children (only 12% of families with children here have 3 or more). They are not following the German reproduction regulation logic like they are supposed to and are refusing to have large families despite regular increases to the child benefit or Kindergeld payments given here.

In an attempt to counteract what is now the German one-child-per-family-if-they-have-any-children-at-all tradition, some reproduction regulators are suggesting that families now be given higher payments for each successive child born. I’m sure this will work just great. Well, I’m kind of sure it might work maybe, I mean.

Of course more money will first have to be taken in from the Germans before some of it can be given back to some of them again but that’s never bothered legislators here before so why break with a tradition like that now?

“Die wirtschaftliche Situation von Familien verbessert sich trotz der staatlichen Unterstützung im Durchschnitt nicht.”

German Of The Day: Lieber ein Ende mit Schrecken als ein Schrecken ohne Ende

January 30, 2015 By in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means “better a terrifying end than unending terror.” In other words, it’s time for Greece to get those drachma machines running again.

Greece

But the Greeks already know this themselves. That’s what they just voted for. Sure, we’ll get to watch how Greece and the EU (Germany) play around with each other for a few weeks as if both sides are tying to find a new solution for a solution that has already long been in place but in the end Greece will leave the EU. This new Greek government is the undertaker man (don’t shake that guy’s hand!). They will point their fingers at Germany on the way out telling Greek voters “we tried everything we could, but…” and then, well, it’s back to the real world again. And this will be a good thing for Greece – in the long run.

Hey, this reminds me of another German saying: Geh mit Gott, aber geh! Go with God, but go!

Entgegen allen Warnungen aus Deutschland und Europa lehnt die griechische Regierung Gespräche mit den internationalen Geldgebern ab. Sie seien in Athen nicht willkommen.

15 Cool German Illnesses You Can Only Get Here

January 29, 2015 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria Tags: , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Mostly because 1) you probably can’t pronounce them and 2) they don’t really exist.

Zivilizationskrankheit

Germans aren’t hypochondriacs, by the way. They’re Hypochonder.

14. ZIVILISATIONSKRANKHEIT

Zivilisationskrankheit, or “civilization sickness” is a problem caused by living in the modern world. Stress, obesity, eating disorders, carpal tunnel syndrome and diseases like type 2 diabetes are all examples.