Fruit sellers go home!

October 2, 2009 By in Home Cooking Tags: 2 Comments

Bashing Berlin? That’s easy. Especially if you’re a real insider who’s on the outside now. Thilo Sarrazin (SPD), the city’s former finance minister now working for the German Central Bank in Frankfurt, has said in an interview that Berlin is 1) not productive enough 2) has too many immigrants and 3) is being held back by its leftist mentality. Well, two out of three ain’t bad (I’m on the immigrants’ side for some strange reason).

Einen Koffer in Berlin habe ich nicht mehr.

“In Berlin there is a bigger problem than elsewhere of an underclass that does not take part in the normal economic cycle. A large number of Arabs and Turks in this city, whose numbers have grown thanks to the wrong policies, have no productive function except selling fruit and vegetables. I would strike a completely different tone. Anyone who can do something and strives for something with us is welcome. The rest should go elsewhere.”

It’s a good thing he went elsewhere before he did this interview is all I can say. And what the hell’s wrong with selling fruit, huh? I don’t see anything wrong with selling fruit. Unless your name is Klaus Wowereit or something, I mean.*

* Inappropriate/incorrect joke warning:  Klaus Wowereit is Berlin’s openly gay mayor who’s about to be the next big thang in what used to be the SPD, get it?

Sarrazin hält die Berliner für eher plebejisch und kleinbürgerlich. Die Bundesbank distanzierte sich von Sarrazins Äußerungen.

Old people forced to use Internet

October 1, 2009 By in Hi-tech Tags: 5 Comments

Old technophobic Germans, and heavens knows there certainly are a lot of those, just aren’t as feisty as they used to be.

Login Granny, or you're Hackepeter!

Forced at gunpoint by a younger generation that’s mad as hell and isn’t going to take all the nagging while they’re online anymore, practically a third of all Germans between the ages of 65 and 74 have now succumbed to the terror and are using the malevolent ‘merican medium as best as they possibly can, which isn’t very good, but still. A full 60 percent of the  jittery old codgers between the ages of 55 and 64 have been pressured into going online now too. The old wimps.

“Viele Senioren gingen nach kurzer Lernphase souverän mit dem Internet um.”

Hitler more than a wussy

September 29, 2009 By in History Tags: Leave a comment

American researchers have set the scientific world and everybody else in an uproar by determining that Adolf Hitler’s bullet-punctured skull fragment actually belonged to a woman, thus making the evil Nazi dictator one of those herself.

Her Hitler!

“This explains a lot of those bizarre hysterical outbreaks of his, I mean hers,” one researcher said. “And that half-ass mustache. And being a vegetarian. Like it all fits together now or something.”

“Ist der Schädel überhaupt echt?”

I thought they’d never leave

September 28, 2009 By in History Tags: Leave a comment

The SPD.

The woman in the middle.

“The SPD’s decline exemplifies the crisis for Europe’s once-mighty center-left parties, which are in disarray in the U.K., France, Italy, Poland and other countries amid divisions over how to balance social protections and business freedoms in an era of rising global competition.”

“The SPD is paying a heavy price for its own boldness in trimming Germany’s welfare state and partially deregulating the labor market under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Those pragmatic moves lost the SPD many of its traditional working-class voters, and have left the party deeply split between centrists and left-wing traditionalists.”

“The voters have decided and the result is a bitter day for German Social Democracy.”

Sinister American computer games everywhere you look

September 25, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 1 Comment

Quentin Tarantino movies are still okay though because he’s not, well, a gamer and these are movies and, uh, he’s cultured or something.

“Counter-strike was developed by the US Army in order to reduce the violence threshold of soldiers.”

Bad game!

“That games like these lead to violence is obvious to me, despite the debatable scientific evidence.”

“Dass solche Killerspele die Hemmschwelle gegen Gewalt herabsetzen, ist für mich eindeutig, auch wenn wissenschaftliche Belege hierfür noch umstritten sind.”

Steinbrück’s Swan Song

September 24, 2009 By in Hypocrisy Tags: 2 Comments

Clearly pissed off about being out of work after Sunday’s election, German finance minister Peer Steinbrück (SPD) has decided to put in one last really annoying punch and declare war on Britain. 

One more Steinbrück for the road.

Economic war, but still.

“Every assertion that he made about Britain in his interview with Stern is either factually wrong, or such a serious distortion of events that it amounts to a smear. Furthermore, it was quite threatening.”

“What he said, in effect, is that Germany will marshal its forces to ensure that a chunk of the British economy is shut down – whatever the social consequences. This is the closest thing I have seen to a declaration of economic warfare in Western Europe in my lifetime.”

I say just ignore him and he’ll go away, Britain. Turn the other stiff upper cheek and all that. Even if you don’t ignore him he’ll be going away, so you might as well just ignore him. We’re all going to miss him, though, or at least I am. Thanks for the memories, Peer.

“We must resist Schadenfreude when that moment comes.”

Hear no evil

September 23, 2009 By in Hate Tags: Leave a comment

Then there’s no need to see it either. Germany is threatening to walk out during Mahmoud “The Rude” Ahmadinejad’s planned speech at the UN later today should he deny the Holocaust for the nine hundred and thirty-fourth time this year.

You can't deny I'm one rude guy.

“We will leave the hall if President Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust or makes anti-Semitic statements … we are making efforts towards a unified European position,” a spokesman at the German foreign ministry said.

Another spokesman who asked not to be identified said that if that doesn’t work, the next time Ahmadinejad gets squirrely at the UN European delegations will unify in holding their breathes until their faces turn uniformly blue.

“As recently as last week, Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust a lie, repeating the inflammatory statement as world powers weigh how to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”