I Would Like To Know More About This ISIS Beheading Thing

March 1, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

And the Charlie Hebdo attack. And all the other attacks. And that mysterious Islamist terror threat yesterday in Bremen. You know. I would like to know more about stuff like that.

Muslim

I would like to understand these things better because I don’t understand them at all because all of these atrocities are being carried out by Islamists in the name of Islam and yet I am continually being told that these Islamists have nothing to do with Islam and that confuses me. This confusion means that I am Islamophobic, apparently. And I know you mean well, mister but I don’t think you are going to have any good answers for me, either. That must be a part of my Islamophobia, too. Help me, man. I’m sick.

“It’s getting more difficult because a lot of Islamophobic themes are coming, people now mixing Islam and terror, so we have to explain a lot.”

PS: And the Miss Germany 2015 winner is… Her.

The Original

February 27, 2015 By in Hard Facts, High Art, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , 3 Comments

Hinweis (please note): This post will not be addressing anything German today. Although…

I don’t know, man. Maybe it’s my age or something but this character here is just too real for me.

Spock

With all due respect, I’ll even venture to ask: Did Leonard Nimoy really exist?

His artistic pursuits — poetry, photography and music in addition to acting — ranged far beyond the United Federation of Planets, but it was as Mr. Spock that Mr. Nimoy became a folk hero, bringing to life one of the most indelible characters of the last half century: a cerebral, unflappable, pointy-eared Vulcan with a signature salute and blessing: “Live long and prosper.”

What A Steal

February 26, 2015 By in Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In more ways than one. Investors are now paying for the privilege of lending Germany money.

Bonds

On Wednesday, Germany issued its first 5-year bond ever with a negative yield, which means investors are making a loss by loaning money to the German government. It sold €3.3 billion ($3.7 billion) of debt at a negative yield of 0.08%, according to the country’s Finance Agency.

If it sounds backwards, that’s because it is.

Investors appear willing to buy at these rates because of falling inflation in Europe. There are even concerns about deflation, which could trigger bigger problems like a recession. The idea is that these German bonds would lose less value than other assets.

PS: Thanks for the way cool “V for Varoufakis” video, A.K.

 

Germans Confused Why Everybody In Europe Wants TTIP Except Them

February 25, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

It’s like I say, folks: A real German says no first and asks questions later (that was oddity 255, if you’re interested). And if US-Amerika is involved in the calculation (see TTIP), all bets are off.

TTIP

“The EU has published a survey according to which citizens are downright euphoric about the free trade agreement TTIP. In all, 25 Member States [of the 28] there will pour sheer enthusiasm over the completely secretly negotiated agreement, but for one small exception: Germans are mostly against the TTIP.”

Die EU hat in Deutschland einen merkwürdigen Zusammenhang zwischen der Befürwortung von TTIP und der „Demokratiezufriedenheit“ der Bürger ausgemacht. In anderen Ländern lasse sich ein solcher Zusammenhang nicht feststellen.

Capitalism Causes All This Awful German Affluence

February 24, 2015 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

And it must be stopped immediately (the capitalism, not the affluence). And let’s get rid of democracy while we’re at it.

Democracy

Survey says… Nearly a third of Germans believe that capitalism is the cause of poverty and hunger.

The poll of 1,400 people found that 59 percent of Germans in the formerly communist east consider communist and socialist ideals a good idea for society. In western Germany, 37 percent said they considered communist and socialist ideals to be good…

The survey found that more than 60 percent of Germans believe there is no genuine democracy in their country because industry has too much political influence and that the voice of the voters plays only a subordinate role.

Although not covered by this particular survey, capitalism and democracy are clearly also the cause behind the German obesity problem, the German six weeks of vacation a year problem, the German lowest unemployment rate and highest per capita (does that word come from capitalism?) savings in all of Europe problems, too. To name just a few.

Einer Studie zufolge glauben mehr als 60 Prozent der Bürger, dass in Deutschland keine echte Demokratie herrscht.

Never Forget That Apple Is Still Evil

February 23, 2015 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Just like Google, Facebook, eBay, Amazon and all those other hi-tech folks (from US-Amerika).

Apple

But try not to notice that German suppliers raked in two billion euros from Apple last year alone. That would be indelicate or something.

German companies are supplying the glass for Apple’s future Campus 2 “mother ship” in Cupertino, for instance. Glass and Geld (money) don’t stink, I guess.

Apple hat im vergangenen Jahr rund zwei Milliarden Euro an Zulieferer aus Deutschland gezahlt, wie Konzernchef Tim Cook am Montag der Deutschen Presse-Agentur mitteilte. Cook besuchte in Gersthofen bei Augsburg den Glas-Spezialisten Seele, dessen Tochtergesellschaft Sedak die Frontscheiben des neuen Apple-Hauptquartiers in Cupertino liefert. Die eigentliche Fassade inklusive der Sedak-Glasscheiben stammt vom schwäbischen Stahl- und Glas-Spezialisten Josef Gartner aus dem benachbarten Gundelfingen an der Donau.

Lithuania

February 22, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week (not).

Lithuania

Because somebody has to admire them if they would only be there to admire but not in this case because countries like Lithuania that actually need weapons from countries like Germany can’t have them because that might hurt countries like Russia’s feelings and we wouldn’t want that.

Maybe the Lithuanians would be interested in some German broomsticks instead?

Die baltischen Staaten fürchten russische Aggressionen nach dem Vorbild der Krim-Invasion und des Kriegs in der Ostukraine. Litauen will seine Armee deshalb modernisieren. Hilfe aus Deutschland gibt es dabei nicht.

German Of The Day: Finanzspritze

February 20, 2015 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

That means an injection of capital. And that’s Greek down there for “I got your injection of capital for you right here, pal.”

Greek

Germany and its allies turned up the pressure on Greece to accept their conditions to stay in the euro as the region’s top finance officials descended on Brussels to hammer out a deal.

“Germany, the Netherlands and others will be hard and they will insist that Greece pays back the solidarity shown by the member states by respecting the conditions. They’ve now reached a point where they will tell Greece ‘if you really want to leave, leave.’”