A Communist Kangaroo?

This can only be a German production. Or a Berlin one, I should say.

Kangaroo

The Kangaroo Chronicles, a quartet of comic novels by slam poet Marc-Uwe Kling that has sold millions of copies in Germany over the last 10 years, is a classic man-meets-beast buddy story in the vein of Seth MacFarlane’s 2012 comedy Ted – only that its animal protagonist is mainly vulgar in the Marxist rather than the foul-mouthed sense…

His only liability, in terms of electoral optics, could be a fatal addiction to booze-filled pralines – and the marsupial pouch in which he keeps his copy of Mao’s red book…

The film, directed by Swiss filmmaker Dani Levy, shows the communist marsupial team up with Berlin locals against Jörg Dwigs, a Trump-style property tycoon and founder of the fictional AzD (“Alternative to democracy”) party: a classic “the people v the elite” narrative, which the German far left has found more difficult to adopt than its counterparts in Britain, America or Southern Europe.

This Could Never Have Happened To Us

As reported earlier

Hindenburg

The enlightened left (in this case Berlin’s “red-redder-green” city government) are routinely shocked to discover that historical figures fail to meet their current level of enlightened leftist consciousness and so must scorn their memory with puritanical outbursts of intoxicating guilt and self-righteous moral outrage.

This could have never happened to them, in other words. They’ve got Stalinists in their own government right now but it could never happen to them.

Berlin strips Hitler kingmaker Paul von Hindenburg of honorary citizenship – Berlin city-state has rescinded honorary citizenship for Paul von Hindenburg. In 1933, the German Weimar-era general-turned president named Adolf Hitler as chancellor, giving him powers for his 12-year Nazi dictatorship.

No Outrage Here

The Germans don’t seem to be interested in this killing in the least. Why is that?

Russia

I understand that if it’s not an American “crime” it just doesn’t have the punch and all but you would think someome somehwere here  might care about the Russian government bumping off people in broad daylight in Berlin. But nobody does.

“V” for “Vympel”: FSB’s Secretive Department “V” Behind Assassination of Georgian Asylum Seeker in Germany – Bendersky and Krasikov spoke by phone at least twenty times in the period of February-August 2019, with the phone calls becoming more frequent in the month before the assassin’s trip to Berlin. Notably, Krasikov called Eduard Bendersky on July 3, 2019, as he was driving back from the town of Bryansk, in western Russia, where, as we previously reported, he received ID documents for “Vadim Sokolov” and registered under his fake identity. Krasikov also called Eduard Bendersky on July 28, the day after he returned from St. Petersburg, where he collected his fake employment papers from a company called ZAO RUST, which he submitted as proof of employment as part of his French visa application. Krasikov’s last phone calls with Bendersky took place on August 13, just three days before he flew to Paris, on his way to Berlin…

It’s Only One In Five

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation has conducted a survey of 1,106 German academics about free speech and discovered that 20% reject Israel’s existence.

Israel

Not all that surprising really, once you consider that a German government study in 2017 found 40% of the population infected with “contemporary antisemitism.” The university folks are just more enlightened, I guess.

“Based on Israel’s policies, I can understand people having something against the Jews.”

Eingeschränkte Wissenschaftsfreiheit in Deutschland? Professoren sehen sich durch Publikationsdruck, teilweise aber auch durch “Political Correctness” gehemmt.

German Of The Day: Ehrenbürger

That means citizen of honor.

Hindenburg

And now, after 87 years, Berlin’s red-redder-green city government (SPD, the Left Party, the Greens) has decided that Paul von Hindenburg can no longer carry that title.

Liberals everywhere are all the same. They are routinely shocked to discover that historical figures fail to meet their current level of enlightened leftist consciousness and must therefore ridicule their memory with pious outbursts of intoxicating guilt and self-righteous outrage. Otherwise they’re a nice bunch of folks, I’m sure.

Am 20. April 1933 wurde Paul von Hindenburg Ehrenbürger Berlins – am gleichen Tag wie Adolf Hitler. Nun wurde ihm die Ehrenbürgerschaft aberkannt. Er habe dazu beigetragen, die Demokratie in Deutschland zu zerstören.

58 Percent Female Directors

And 97 percent crappy movies. Which is actually down from past years. So keep up the good work or something.

Crap

The Berlin Film Festival on Wednesday unveiled its Generations sidebar lineup, consisting of 59 children and youth films, with 58 percent of the titles, both feature-length and short films, directed by women.

Berlin organizers recently also said that the festival’s co-production market, where producers look for partners to finance their new projects, will feature more than 50 percent female-directed films for the first time in its 17-year history.

PS: What prevented the token woman from getting her diet coke from the soda machine? She didn’t have enough quotas to pay for it.

More German Oddity 15

Berlin: WWII Bomb Find Leads to Evacuation of Thousands, Including the Mayor – In Berlin’s ‘Mitte’ district, a large WWII bomb was found on a construction site on Tuesday. Police started evacuating thousands of people in the evening. They included Berliners and visitors.

Berlin

Berlin’s Governing Mayor Michael Müller, the Senate and their staff were evacuated from Red City Hall on Tuesday, due to a World War II bomb find. The latter weighs 250 kilos (550 pounds). A bomb disposal unit was supposed to diffuse the bomb this evening, but the evacuation took time.

German Oddity 15. Germany is a place where huge underground bombs are routinely unearthed all around the country and this barely even makes second page news. In fact, most Germans directly affected are more annoyed about it than anything else. They grudgingly leave their homes until the bomb crews have disarmed or detonated the damned things. Over 5,000 bombs are found in Germany every year.

German Farmers Have A Bad Attitude

They’re not cooperating. With well-meaning German government efforts to save Planet Earth as we know it, I mean.

Regulation

They say they’re fed up with government interference and brought out hundreds of tractors to block the streets of Berlin and several other cities in northern Germany this weekend, the culmination of months of protests to coincide with the start of International Green Week — a major agriculture and food fair in the German capital.

Why do these farmers insist on wanting to continue to make a decent living while feeding everybody else? It’s just not fair. They simply don’t understand that the governement – coming out with the next wave of new government regulations restricting the use of fertilizer, manure and insecticides, etc. – is, well, here from the government and they’re here to help.

“Over-regulation is the last thing we need.”

It’s That German Christmas Feeling

That German Christmas market feeling. That every year at this time of year Christmas market feeling.

Christmas

Holly, wreaths, bells ringing, people screaming, suspicious packages, evacuations, Islamists being arrested…

German police said on Saturday that they had asked visitors to Berlin’s Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz to leave the area after receiving information about suspicious objects.

Beide Männer gehören zur Salafisten-Szene.

The Rents Won’t Be the Only Things That Will Freeze

Building will come to a complete standstill in Berlin too.

Berlin

But Berlin’s red-redder-green politicians (SPD, the Left Party, the Greens) don’t know anything about building (look at the state the city of Berlin is in). They can only tear things down. Oh, yes. And redistribute. They will redistribute for as long as it takes to get anybody who’s got anything to get out of town.

Berlin Builders Hit the Streets in Backlash Over Rent Freeze – The German capital’s government is trying to ease the burden on tenants after a property boom caused rents to double over the past decade. However, critics of the plan — including economists and large landlords — have said the only way to address growing demand for housing is to build more homes.

The rent-freeze legislation will start its passage through Berlin’s parliament this week and is expected to come into force in the first quarter of next year…

The city’s plans “threaten to cause considerable damage to both the housing market and Berlin as a whole,” IW institute economists wrote in a recent report for the Christian Democratic Union party, which is in opposition in Berlin and opposes the measures. Scrapping the plan is “urgently needed from an economic perspective to prevent wider damage to the Berlin economy,” they added.