Be Bold, Bitte

June 7, 2012 By in Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The Economist writes: If the euro collapses, then Germany will suffer hugely.

The downgrading of some of its banks this week was a portent of that. Moreover, the undoubted mistakes in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain and the other debtor countries have been compounded over the past three years by errors in Europe’s creditor countries. The overwhelming focus on austerity; the succession of half-baked rescue plans; the refusal to lay out a clear path for the fiscal and banking integration that is needed for the single currency to survive: these too are reasons why the euro is so close to catastrophe. And since Germany has largely determined this response, most of the blame belongs in Berlin.

Throughout this crisis, Mrs Merkel has refused to come up with a plan bold enough to stun the markets into submission, in the same way that America’s TARP programme did. In short, even if her strategy has paid some dividends, its cost has been ruinous and it has run its course.

Ozone Hole Fixed Or Something

June 4, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Higher Education, Hustle (Hoax), Hysteria Tags: , , 4 Comments

Now there’s a hole where the ozone hole used to be. No hole at all, I mean. Boy, I tell ya. Times sure are getting pretty unholey when you can’t even count on ozone hole hype anymore. The damned thing just up and disappeared altogether the other day.

Personally, I think German scientists at the Alfred Wegner Institute (and elsewhere) are behind it, but none of the hard evidence is in yet.

Nun jedoch sagen Forscher des Alfred-Wegener-Instituts für Polar- und Meeresforschung: Das Loch ist wieder zu. 

Germans Really Are Peaceniks After All

June 3, 2012 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hi-tech, History, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The submarines they have furnished Israel with will certainly be keeping the peace.

Israel is arming these Dolphin class subs with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Any nation that attacks Israel with a nuclear weapon will live to regret it. Not for very long, though.

Now this is gun control that really works. And here we thought the Germans were so down on nuclear power and all that.

“Darauf kann Deutschland stolz sein.”

Mark Your Calendars And Place Your Bets

June 1, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I had no idea Auflösungserscheinungen (signs of disintegration) could occur this quickly with “progressive” political parties, not even in Germany. But disintegrating they are, two of them, right before our very eyes.

Let’s make a bet:

In three years at the latest, the Left Party will have completely lost whatever very, very little relevance they are said to have once had (still have?).

In two years time, no one will be reporting about the Pirate Party at all anymore. Not even Der Spiegel.

If I lose the bet, I’ll admit that I was wrong and you can buy me a cup of coffee. If I’m right, I won’t have to admit I was wrong and you can still buy me the cup of coffee.

“Ich bin müde, ausgepowert, erschöpft.”

PS: Little Big Man Oskar Lafontaine just shot himself in the foot for the last time (I hope) and the Left Party is now mutating back to roll over and die on either side of its natural East-West divide, with the Communists of the East literally dying off like flies and the Möchtegern (wannabe) Communists of the West having lost interest and now wandering off for the latest next great cause (see Pirate Party). The Pirate Party has already long reached its fraternity house gag zenith and just will not function, “transparancy” or not, because it refuses to develop a platform more suitable for the inhabitants of Planet Earth, much less a structure of any kind, and the people supposedly running the show throw in the towels quicker than they can learn how to use them (they don’t bathe regulary, get it?). That guy up there (and the guy right after him) quite from exhaustion after a couple of days of something that used to be called “work,” just like that.

I wish I could make stuff like this up but I can’t.

Privacy Concern Has Its Price

May 31, 2012 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

And in this case it will be about 300,000 euros per day.

European authorities have taken Germany to court for failing to implement the E.U. Data Retention Directive.

The European Commission announced on Thursday that it wants the European Court of Justice to impose a fine of just over €315,000 (US$391,866) a day.

The Data Retention Directive requires telephone companies and ISPs to store huge amounts of telecommunications information, including data about email, phone calls and text messages, for law enforcement purposes.

So much for Germany being the Musterschüler (model student) in all things EU. Germans don’t like this law because they live in a POLICE STATE or something (albeit one that’s all in their minds). It’s not that Germans don’t trust their fellow Germans or anything, you see, it’s just that they don’t trust their fellow Germans.

Hey, they should know. Where there’s smoke there’s fire and all that? I guess I’d pay up, too.

Weil Berlin geltendes EU-Gesetz über die Vorratsdatenspeicherung nicht in nationales Recht übertragen hat, hat die EU-Kommission Deutschland vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof verklagt.

Germany Not Considering Military Options Again

May 30, 2012 By in Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Humor, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Just in case you were wondering, I mean (this time they’re not considering them for Syria).

Not like anybody would ever expect them to consider otherwise. I mean, is the Pope a Catholic? Do chickens use fowl language? Do vacuum cleaners suck?

Germans never consider military options, even when they maybe ought to. Unless it’s an Angriffskrieg (war of aggression), I mean. And that’s been a while. It’s just what they (don’t) do. They don’t use weapons, people. They just, you know, sell them.

“We want to avoid a wildfire in the region.”

What’s 20 (30? 40?) Billion Euros These Days?

May 29, 2012 By in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

It’s peanuts, man. Renewable peanuts.

Damn. This gives power madness a whole new meaning.

Germany mapped out a 20 billion euro ($25 billion) plan on Tuesday to expand its power grid and avoid a “power gap” as Europe’s largest economy switches away from nuclear to renewable energy.

Germany’s government, the federal energy network regulator and transmission grid firms unveiled joint plans for thousands of kilometres of new electricity lines to 2022, to help distribute volatile renewable energy.

Operators say some 3,800 kilometers of new power lines needed through 2022.

Heretics Verboten!

May 27, 2012 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Europe Doesn’t Need the Euro? Another religious tract to study on Sundays.

All of this is kind of like religion, don’t you think? First you’ve got some prophets who come out of the wilderness (the political class preaching the virtues of the euro, come hell or high water), then what they say gets labeled as heresy by the faithful (by the “man on the street” who wants to keep his deutschmark), then the euro faith overcomes this persecution, establishes itself as the true universal teaching and becomes orthodoxy. Then the next voice out of the wilderness comes along and the game starts all over again, etcetera and so forth already.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t beleive that Thilo Sarrazin is a full-fledged prophet or anything (I just think he wants to make a buck, I mean euro). But he’s not a full-fledged heretic, either. And that’s something the euro high priests could never admit to.

The euro, in Sarrazin’s view, is just the old German deutschmark extended to a lot of countries with less robust currencies.

Germany, in other words, is being used as a guarantor of other countries’ debts.

“The German political class bet that the political union would follow shortly thereafter almost as a matter of natural law, because without that the common currency wouldn’t be stable. That bet has failed.”

Germans are hostage to their sense of not wanting to be responsible for Europe’s failure.

Germans are hostage to their sense of historical guilt.

“Pro-euro Germans are driven by that very German reflex, that we can only finally atone for the Holocaust and World War II when we have put all our interests and money into European hands.”

“Angela Merkel to like the friendly woman on the navigation system in my car.”