McWhy not?
You’ve just got to ask yourself how it could have taken this long to begin with.
Few traces of the wall remain but the site is home to a replica of a hut housing US border guards behind sandbags as well as a “You Are Entering the American Sector” sign.
And I’ll hold my breath until my face turns blue if you don’t believe me. Geez. This is almost like the good-old Gerhard Schroeder days – saying no before anybody asks anything of you – and that’s even with you-know-who now in office (what’s-his-name is long gone, remember?).
That Germany won’t ever really deploy real troops in a real war in a real country called Afghanistan is certainly no secret to anyone anywhere, least of all the Taliban, but that Germany’s new Foreign Minister is prepared to puff and pout and not even attend the upcoming Afghanistan conference in London should it “degrade” to a pure troop deployment conference, well, that’s kind of special (not).
As predicted, Germany has dragged its feet this past month in the face of calls from President Obama to help with a push to defeat the Taliban with more combat troops, holding off from any decision regarding troop numbers until after the London talks. Now it seems the Germans have reached a new phase: They are now even prepared to hold off on taking part on any talks before holding off on making a decision which, as all the world can clearly see, has been made long ago; nein. Or no, if you prefer.
“Mit seinem Nein zu einer deutlichen Aufstockung des Bundeswehrkontingentes steht Westerwelle ja beileibe nicht alleine. Diese Position ist auch den USA längst bekannt. Aber durch die versuchte Vorfestlegung eines Konferenzverlaufs, den Deutschland nur partiell beeinflussen kann, isoliert der Minister sich und die ganze Bundesregierung innerhalb des Bündnisses. Das ist einfach dumm.”
In Iran? Sure would be nice.
And one thing speaking for it is the sheer improbabilty of it all. But that seems to be how history works.
“I don’t believe in miracles. I’ve seen too many of them.”
Why are there no naked scanners in Germany? Because Germans are all privacy protectionists, you nekkid fool.
But there might be hope for them (us?) yet. And not just because of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s attempt to blow up Delta Airlines flight 253 for Christmas. These new real modern naked scanner machine thingies have been changed so that body dimensions like, you know, genitals, can not be distinguished – no matter how distinguished they are.
„It is advised to get to the airport early.”
Beautiful German of the week.
Because somebody has to admire them.
Have a Merry Christmas and stuff.
“Yes we can!”
Umm, actually no we can’t.
It soon became clear that China was not signing up to any treaty that allowed other countries to snoop around in their dirty emissions laundry.
I mean snow, of course. And not just in Copenhagen either.
I know, I know. This is weather, not climate. I’m not stupid. Or more stupider than the next guy, I mean.
At the same time a draft document was leaked that would ask the world to keep temperature rise below 2C (3.6F). It would ask rich countries to cut greenhouse gases, but does not yet have legally-binding numerical targets. It would also ask developing countries to take action to reduce emissions for the first time. The leaked text caused anger among delegates just as President Obama arrived at the conference to “save the Earth”.
You count them. Environment here, global warming there (while pointing the finger at everybody else in both directions at the same time), when it comes to building new coal-burning power plants in Germany, well, that’s different. No protests in the streets here (or in Copenhagen) about that one.
“The following list shows the status of controversial new coal-fired power plant projects in Germany, which are the focus of environmentalists campaigning against climate-harming carbon emissions from the coal-to-power generation process.”
Or at least it’s a really annoying (nervig) and superfluous (überflüssig) one. That’s how the Association of the Friends of the German Language voted this year. They prefer the German word for sale, it seems. Whatever the hell that is.
And the word they liked for 2009 was Abwrackprämie (cash for clunkers), which is also a German word for sale, kind of.
I don’t take these folks all that seriously, though, nor should you. Their website doesn’t even offer an English version link thingy.
Der 1997 gegründete VDS mit mehr als 31.000 Mitgliedern bezeichnet sich selbst als „die weltweit größte Sprach-Bürgerbewegung“.
Observing Hermann 
