Tag Archives: Berlin

Germany In Grave Danger Again

March 20, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

It’s all over but the crying now. Or whining, if you prefer. German Wetter (weather) just keeps getting wetter!

A new study tells us that the number of “devastating” storms, heavy rains and other weather-related “natural catastrophes” has tripled in Germany since the 70s! Wow. Have there actually been three already?

Scarier still is that the climate model for the next thirty years (this in a country that can’t get the weather forecast for tomorrow right, mind you) calls for even more “heavy precipitation” that will most likely lead to – oh my God we’re all going to die – flooding! That’s right, the f-word. Oh the horror or something. And you thought it couldn’t happen here.

„Für die nächsten 30 Jahre rechnen Klimamodelle in Deutschland vor allem mit einer Zunahme der Sturmintensität und mit mehr Starkniederschlägen, die zu Überschwemmungen führen.“

Germany’s Energy Turnaround Rocks

March 19, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

They never promised you a rose garden (actually, they did). It looks like Germany’s Energiewende (the energy turnaround = shutting down nuclear power and waiting for solar and wind energy to pick up slack) is going to have its price, too.

And it looks likes the first installment will by about a seven percent increase in energy costs for private housholds. But Germans pay these increases gladly, I think. At least for now (seven percent is just the start, of course). It’s back to the future. It’s for the common good. Or it’s for saving the planet or something.

Uh, like why don’t they just have “the state” pay for it. Oh, that’s right. They already are (the taxpayers are, that is).

Stromtrassen, Umschlagwerke oder intelligente Stromzähler kosten den Staat Milliarden. Draufzahlen muss am Ende oft der Verbraucher – offenbar bis zu sieben Prozent in den kommenden Jahren.

Remember The Ozone Hole?

March 18, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

We were just kidding.

No, seriously. Something called the Montreal Protocol just saved the world as we know it from most certain destruction, bringing about a “healing of the ozone layer” and thus reducing our exposure to harmful UV rays from the sun which was being caused by, well, refrigerators and aerosol spray cans. Just like that. Almost as if by magic or something.

A German research institute has even confirmed this wonderful news, so you can bet that it’s for real (Germans are very thorough, you know). And said German research institute, like all those other research institutes out there, is being completely objective here and has in no way profited from the research funds given it to research said ozone hole phenomena and only böse Zungen (malicious tongues) would suggest otherwise.

The underlying message here: To rid the world of all manner of unpleasantness and harmful gas, both hot and cold, all we need are more protocols (like Montreal or Kyoto, say), and not less. Or fewer, I mean. And more funding, of course.

“The results are encouraging. The fact that the ozone layer in the regions researched has become thicker is a result of the successful Montreal Protocol.”

Our Holy Hymnal Election Video, Amen

March 16, 2012 By in Habitudes, Helections, Hi-tech, High Art, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Wow. If anyone appreciates good propaganda, it’s these guys. The Der Spiegel clearly, if not accidently, got this one right: Obama, Amerikas Supermann.

“Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim directed it, Oscar winner Tom Hanks narrated it: Barack Obama’s election strategists have released a 17 minute promotional film. It stylizes the US President as a lonely hero who has single-handedly led his country out of crisis.”

Coming soon to a living room near you.

“Dieses Video ist für die Fans, und ihr wisst, wer sich angesprochen fühlen sollte.”

But At Least He Didn’t Say Nazi

March 15, 2012 By in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, History, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Sigmar Gabriel, the head of the German Social Democratic Party and possible candidate for Chancellor of Germany, finally decided to break with that long and rather tiring SPD tradition of calling dissenters Nazis and tried out something new and refreshingly different instead; labelling the state of Israel an “Apartheid-Regime” on his Facebook page.

And to give the whole thing a little more umpf, he decided to publish this while visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories. Now he gets to pretend to defend his comparison of Israel to a racist state live and in color, right there before those terrible racists themselves (the Israelis, not the Palestinians). I tell ya, you got to have instinct in this business. Go SPD!

“I was just in Hebron. That is a lawless territory there for Palestinians. This is an apartheid regime, for which there is no justification.”

German Animal Paparazzi Murder Ear-Challenged Bunny Shortly Before Easter

March 14, 2012 By in Helplessness, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Caught up in the manic media feeding frenzy during the filming of a rare baby rabbit born without ears in a zoo at a place called  Limbach-Oberfrohna somewhere in the wilds of eastern Germany, an overzealous news team cameraman stepped out of line and then on to the defenseless near-celebrity, bringing what would have surely been a far too short career to an even more untimely end.

“He was immediately dead. He didn’t suffer. It was a direct hit. No one could have foreseen this. Everyone here is upset. The cameraman is distraught,” a shocked and stuttering zoo spokesman said again and again and again.

At least he never saw it coming. Or heard it coming, either.

Warum es ohne Ohren auf die Welt kam, ist noch nicht endgültig geklärt. Womöglich handelt es sich um einen genetischen Defekt. “Es kann aber auch sein, dass die Mutter dem Kaninchen die Ohren abgeknabbert hat.”

Lots of Luck, Pal

March 13, 2012 By in Habitudes, Health, Helections, Helplessness, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

He sure is an ambitious character, I’ll give him that much: Future German president Joachim Gauck “wants to rid Germany of angst.”

I’ll be the first to agree that what this nation needs is a good psychiatrist, but to actually rid Germany of angst?

That would be like ridding zebras of their stripes.

That would be like ridding muskrats of their musk.

That would be like ridding Americans of their apple pie.

No, no. I’ve just changed my mind. This not only can’t be done, I don’t believe it should even be tried. It would be immoral or something. And potentially dangerous. No, it would be absolutely positively dangerous. Let’s just let this sleeping, angst-ridden dog lie, el presidente.

Germany’s next president, wants to reinvigorate the nation with his passion for freedom and democracy. His emotional, at times unguarded rhetoric will liven up German politics — but could backfire if he isn’t careful.

German Austerity Still Quite A Rarity

March 12, 2012 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Despite all the talk to the contrarity.

The German government didn’t reach even half of its planned savings in the federal budget in 2011. Only 42 percent of the spending cuts named by Merkel’s coalition government, comprised of the conservative Christian Democrats and the business-friendly Free Democratic Party, were actually not implemented…

The government is also falling behind on its targets for this year. Of the originally planned €19.1 billion in savings, less than half has been implemented…

This lapse (in reaching savings targets) is particularly embarrassing for the German government because the news comes just after 25 European Union member states agreed in early March to an international fiscal pact obliging them to adhere to greater fiscal discipline…

The aim of the pact is to make EU countries maintain binding austerity measures that leaders hope will contain the debt crisis and prevent countries like Greece from being able to pile up massive debts again.

And countries like Germany will show them how to do it, see? Next year, maybe. Or the year after that. Hard to say for sure.

 “It (the pact) is a milestone in the history of the European Union.”

German Computer Clouds Don’t Stink

March 11, 2012 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I mean float. At least not across the German border, they don’t.

Germans being pathalogically hypersensitive whenever it comes to data protection issues, whether they be actual issues or not, Deutsche Telekom has cleverly exploited these wildly popular fears during this year’s CeBIT technology fair by suggesting to “the 3.6 million prosperous German small and medium sized firms who have not yet taken the leap to storing their data using cloud computing” that their “German cloud” can offer them the safety and security that those leaky and toxic foreign clouds could never offer them – even if those foreign clouds wanted to offer them safety and security in the first place which, of course, they don’t.

Telekom’s cloud – some 30 datacenters spread across Germany – is, well, spread across Germany, so nothing can ever possibly go wrong, one Telekom spokesman tells us. “And we are not playing on peoples’ fears, either” another spokesman added. “It’s just that when servers are situated outside of Germany there is a risk that companies will use your data for commercial purposes or, worse, they will be spied on by the secret services.”

Let’s all sing together: Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it will creep. It starts when you’re always afraid. You step out of line, the man come and take you away…

This will be “a cloud computer model for the German market and in the German language.” Made for Germans. By Germans. In Germany.