Between shutting down 8 nuclear power plants and the blackout that just hit Hanover, I mean.
This just sort of happened. It happens here all the time or something. So keep on moving, folks. Nothing to look at here.
Tag Archives: Berlin
Green Glamour?
In Berlin green is glamourous (wow, that’s a no-brainer).
Makes sense, if you think about it. Green certainly isn’t what you would call a “power” color.
But I don’t know. Do you really want to walk around in sustainable clothes all the time? After three or four months of constant wear, that sustainable sweater of yours may not be biodegradeable any more.
Speaking of Heuling…
The current women’s soccer fest has shown me once again that women just aren’t as good at soccer as men are. When it comes to fake soccer injuries, I mean.
“As soccer fans, we are shocked, shocked to learn that some players might not really be injured when they flop onto the pitch. Now comes a study suggesting that women are less likely to fake soccer injuries than men.”
They’re just missing that killer instinct or something.
Heul doch!
“He who bids and heuls away, may live to bid another day.”
Thousands of people jeered in Munich when the International Olympic Committee’s decision to select Pyeongchang of South Korea over the German city as the host of the 2018 Winter Olympics was announced on Wednesday.
Heul doch , Heul doch!
wenn du damit fertig bist dan bitte geh doch
was,was,was,was wilst du noch?
Germany’s Latest Contribution To The Arab Spring
These must be special Panzer for Peace or something, these 200 ultra-modern Leopard battle tanks Germany is now prepared to supply to Saudi Arabia.
This is a dramatic reversal of Germany’s decade-long policy of not furnishing that zany authoritarian kingdom with heavy weapons and is clearly designed to send a strong message to freedom-loving Arab protesters everywhere (the Saudi military recently helped put down protests in Bahrain, if you recall).
Whether that is the right message or not, that’s another question.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the main buyers of German weapons systems in the years 2006 through 2010 were:
Greece (with a share of 15 percent)
South Africa (11 percent)
Turkey (10 percent)
South Korea (nine percent)
Malaysia (seven percent)
SIPRI said that Germany advanced from fifth to third place among the biggest arms sellers between 1998 and 2009, even though a previous center-left government pledged in 2000 to pursue a “restrictive'” policy on exporting defense technology.
More Direct Democracy
And it doesn’t get any more direct than this. Now you can vote online for your sexiest German parlamentarian.
Not that you would want to or anything. I’m just saying.
Which German Politician would you rather …? Choose one.
But We Mentioned Human Rights
You got your values, then you got your interests. Then you have the value of your interests. Then you have the interest you get on the value of those interests.
So, in other words, always look after your own interests if you want good value.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also targeted an increase of bilateral trade to 200bn euros ($284bn; £178bn) over the next five years.
Germany is by far China’s biggest trading partner in the European Union.
China and Germany are the two biggest exporters in the world.
Guns R Us
How magnanimous or something. Now that NATO is running out of munitions to use in the Libya conflict (go Europe!), Germany has decided not to obstain from sending weapons to its allies.
The positive response to the politically sensitive demand is another concession to its allies by the German government, which has been heavily criticized in recent weeks because of its Security Council abstention in the March vote, which resulted in a resolution authorizing the use of force to protect Libya’s civilian population. Russia and China also abstained.
“NATO allies must pool funds or face decline: Gates”
Everything Is So Wonderfulawful Here
Things have never been better here in Germany, we are told. And yet the German nation still can’t seem to get up off the collective couch (the psychiatrist’s kind).
This guy has an interesting take on Germany’s latest “season of angst” or why a prosperous nation has this obsessive need to turn on itself (and those around it).
His bewilderment is uncalled for however, I find. I can only wonder why he wonders. The Germans were, are and always will be collectively schizophrenic, in their own peculiar (cute?) little way. They are permanently krankgeschrieben (off sick) and that couch is, well, where they live.
Yet it is very hard to find anyone here who is happy about this state of affairs. Unlike the great Rhineland industrial booms of the 1950s and 1970s, this one is provoking Germans to turn against their government, against Europe, against technology and growth, against outsiders. It is an inward-looking, self-questioning moment in a country that the rest of Europe very badly needs to be involved in affairs outside its borders.
Green Electricity Threatening Energy Turnaround
Yeah, I know. You thought that Germany’s Energiewende (energy turnaround) was synonymous with green or eco-power (I did too). But if you listen to what some scientist types are saying (Rheinisch-Westfälischen Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung or RWI, for instance)–and you won’t, and nobody else will either–the present state of renewable energy in Germany is so clearly deficient and so way too costly (especially when it comes to generating solar energy) that they recommend rethinking the whole big turnaraound thang (not that all that much thinking had gone into it in the first place or anything, that rethinking part was just a figure of speach).
Some of these folks are even starting to call this mess Der große Solarschwindel (The Great Solar Energy Scam). But, like I said, nobody is particularly interested in hearing about things like this. Or do you want the Green Shirts to come knocking on your door one night? And after all, money is no object here. It never is when it isn’t your own.
Es bestehen derzeit in Deutschland so große Defizite in Bezug auf Leitungsbau, Speicherkapazitäten und bei der Vernetzung mit den europäischen Nachbarn, dass es vorerst nicht ratsam erscheint, mit dem Ausbau regenerativer Stromerzeugungskapazitäten fortzufahren.
Observing Hermann 