German Of The Day: Schleierfahndung

June 12, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Asylm Seekers, Borders, Cottbus, Courts, Dragnet, German, Judges, Language, Laws, Manslaughter, Murder, Refugees, Rulings, Stop and Search 1 Comment

“Veiled searches” probably aren’t what you think they are. Women wearing veils aren’t randomly being searched here (although the idea isn’t half bad).

It means stop and search practices or dragnet controls – searches made without having a concrete suspicion.

Bavaria is pushing hard for more of these at the moment, all over the country. Federal minister of the interior Thomas de Maizière is all for it, too. And the usual cry of outrage hält sich in Grenzen (is being kept within bounds, within the border). Maybe because this is a country that thinks it doesn’t need to have a border?

Diese verdachtsunabhängigen Polizeikontrollen sind bislang auf einen 30-Kilometer-Gürtel hinter den Bundesgrenzen beschränkt, sollten laut Herrmann aber auch in der Nähe von Flughäfen, Bahnhöfen und Rastplätzen möglich sein.

PS: Not that stop and search would do any good here in Germany anyway. The courts here don’t cooperate. Check out the judgement reached be a court in Cottbus last week: A Muslim asylum seeker stabs his wife 19 times, cuts her throat and throws her out the window because he thinks she’s been sleeping around (the mother of his five children). He gets off with manslaughter. That means he’ll be out in half the time he would be out in if convicted of murder (there is no life sentence in Germany). The court’s reasoning? In the Muslim world it’s apparently OK to kill your wife if she commits adultery so the man had to be judged with a different set of standards. He gets a discount, in other words. For being a Muslim. This was a court in Germany. Today. Coming to your town soon.

Brother Of Safia S. Now Islamist Criminal, Too

June 8, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Courts, German, Germans, Germany, Islamist Terror, Law, Safia S., Saleh S., Terror, Terrorists 1 Comment

And his name is Brother S.

Sorry, I mean Saleh S. And don’t even think of telling me that you don’t know who Safia S. is cause I know you do. But now her brother, Saleh S., has been given seven years of Jugendstrafe (youth custody) for carrying out an Islamist-motivated arson attack. In Germany, people. That means he could literally spend months in prison.

Mother S. and Father S. could not be reached for comment. Nor could Cousin S. (no relation to Cousin Itt). Nor could the Dog S. of the Great Aunt S. of the Neighbor Across The Street S. Okay, S. reicht (that’s enough) already!

Das Landgericht der Stadt hat Saleh S. nun wegen versuchten Mordes in sieben Fällen schuldig gesprochen. Dem Gericht zufolge hat der junge Mann gestanden, am 5. Februar 2016 aus islamistischen Motiven zwei Molotow-Cocktails in den Haupteingang eines Einkaufszentrums in Hannover geworfen zu haben.

PS: Talk about your Fahrenheit 351 (I know, it’s actually Fahrenheit 451). There are currently 351 Islamists with warrants out for their arrests being searched for by police in Germany. It is unclear, however, how many of them are members of the S. family.

German Of The Day: Schweinefurz

February 10, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Bans, Böhmermann, Courts, Erdogan, Free speech, German, Germans, Germany, Justice, Language, Law, Satire Leave a comment

That means pig fart. And pig farts are super hilarious here in Germany (Hey, German humor is what it is. I’m not passing judgement here or anything).

Unless, of course, they are directed toward foreign heads of state, so-to-speak.

A German court upheld ban on a satirical poem which suggested Turkey’s president had sex with animals and watched child porn. The Hamburg court upheld its injunction issued in May banning re-publication of parts of the poem which it called ‘abusive and defamatory’.

A lamb or a llama fart probably probably wouldn’t have been all that bad in this guy’s poem, but pig fart? That just doesn’t cut it (Cut it, get it?).

„Schweinefurz“ ist für Erdogan besonders ehrverletzend.

At Least It’s Not A Life Sentence

January 13, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings Tags: Courts, Crime, Dieselgate, German, Germans, Germany, Justice, Language, Law, VW 1 Comment

Or lebenslänglich*, as the Germans like to call it. It’s only 169 years.

Or could be. For Volkswagen managers who get arrested in US-Amerika, I mean.

A U.S. judge on Thursday ordered a Volkswagen executive charged in the Justice Department’s diesel emissions investigation held without bail pending trial. Oliver Schmidt was arrested Saturday at Miami’s International Airport as he planned to fly home after a vacation. He was one of six current and former VW executives charged this week in U.S. District Court in Detroit. The other five are in Germany and are unlikely to be extradited…

Schmidt is charged with eleven felony counts, which could be punished by up to 169 years in prison, the government said.

VW-Manager drohen bis zu 169 Jahre Gefängnis

* There is no such think as a life sentence in Germany, by the way. A life sentence is 15 years here.

Angela Merkel To Be Deported

November 27, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Asylum, Courts, Deportation, German, Germans, Germany, Justice, Law, Merkel, Refugees, Rulings, Syria Leave a comment

Although it looks to me like they may have picked the wrong one.

Late last year, a Syrian woman gave birth to a girl at a former hospital that had been repurposed into a refugee shelter in Duisburg, Germany. She and her husband had only recently arrived in Germany and wanted to honor their new home. So, they named their daughter Angela Merkel.

But less than a month before the infant’s first birthday, the Al-Hamza family’s future in their adopted country isn’t looking so sure. According to the Bild newspaper, the family was told their asylum application had been rejected by Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. Instead, the Al-Hamza family has been offered “subsidiary protection,” a separate legal status that protects people from deportation for an initial period of one year but does not allow them to bring their family to Germany. They may stay longer if they are shown to be working and learning German to a sufficient level.

“There are no indications that the Syrian state puts everyone under general suspicion of belonging to the opposition.”

We Did Nothing Wrong

March 15, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Big Government, Business, Courts, Energy, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Lawsuits, Nuclear energy, Nuclear Shutdown, The State, Utilities Leave a comment

“We paid our taxes, we paid our wages, we have done what every other company does with its investments.” Then what are you whining about, you fools? That just makes it all the more obvious that you must be punished.

Power firms brought a legal challenge on Tuesday against a German government decision to shut down the country’s nuclear plants by 2022, a lawsuit that could allow them to claim 19 billion euros ($21 billion) in damages.

The decision deprived the utilities of one of their main sources of profit and pitched them into crisis as the focus moved to renewables and electricity prices tumbled.

“Wir sind als Bundesregierung sehr zuversichtlich, dass unsere Rechtsauffassung obsiegen wird… Die Kernkraft war von Anfang an hoch umstritten. Es musste jederzeit mit der Möglichkeit einer Neubewertung gerechnet werden.”

Taxing Nuclear Fuel Rods That Aren’t Being Used?

November 19, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Courts, Electricity, Energy, Energy Turnaround, EU, Europe, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Green Shirts, Justice, Law, Nuclear power, Taxation, Taxes Leave a comment

You can never be too rich or too thin, I guess. And if you’re Germany, you can never tax too much, either.

Germany’s biggest utilities, still reeling from the country’s early exit from nuclear power, scored a major victory Tuesday when a Hamburg court said the national tax on nuclear fuel rods may violate European law.

The Hamburg finance court said it “cannot assess beyond any doubt” whether the tax on nuclear fuel used for electricity generation complies with European law. It will now ask the European Court of Justice to decide whether the levy conforms with rules that prohibit member states from creating new taxes on electricity for “general budget financing purposes.”

The tax was introduced at the beginning of 2011 and came as part of an extension of nuclear reactors’ operating lives that the government had agreed on. However, the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima power plant in March of that year triggered a U-turn in German energy policy, with Chancellor Angela Merkel ordering the immediate shutdown of the oldest plants and the early phaseout of nuclear energy by 2022. Out of 17 reactors that were in operation in March 2011, only nine are still producing power. But the fuel-rod tax remains in place, to the utilities’ annoyance.

Das Hamburger Finanzgericht will vom Europäischen Gerichtshof (EuGH) in Luxemburg zentrale Fragen zur umstrittenen Brennelementesteuer klären lassen.

Big Phasehout Payout On The Way

February 28, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Atomic energy, Berlin, Courts, Energy Turnaround, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Law, Nuclear energy, The Green Shirts Leave a comment

A three-month closure imposed by the government on RWE’s Biblis A and B reactors as an immediate response to the Fukushima accident was illegal, a German court has ruled.

The administrative court for the German state of Hesse has found the state ministry of the environment acted illegally on 18 March 2011 when it issued an order for the immediate closure of the Biblis units.

This decision, as well as a tax on nuclear fuel levied in anticipation of continued operation of nuclear plants before the phaseout decision, have cost German nuclear operators dear: RWE estimated that the phase-out cost the company over €1 billion ($1.3 billion) in 2011 alone.

Any claims for damages against the state of Hesse would be decided in subsequent civil court proceedings.

Duff Beer Exists Here

December 6, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Beer, Bier, Courts, Duff Beer, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Law, Satire, The Simpsons Leave a comment

Homer Simpson is a cartoon character, right? And Duff beer is imaginary.

But in Germany you can enjoy Duff beer for real, brewed by two separate companies even, if you want to, because Germany’s Federal Court of Justice (the nation’s highest court of law) said you could.

I don’t make this stuff up, people. This country’s a freakin’ fantasia land amusement park or something. For cryin’ out loud.

“In dieser Zeichentrickserie tritt ein Herr Homer Simpson auf, und dieser Herr trinkt”, erläuterte der Vorsitzende Richter Joachim Bornkamm in der mündlichen Verhandlung. Wobei Bornkamm betonte, es sei wohl “ein eher billiges Bier”.

That Didn’t Take Long

July 12, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Health, Helplessness, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Church and State, Circumcision, Courts, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Jews, Judges, Law, Muslems, Religion, Ritual, State, The Judicial System, Tradition Leave a comment

“We urge the Jewish community in Germany and circumcisers to continue to perform circumcisions and not to wait for a change in the law.”

A German court’s ban on circumcising baby boys has provoked a rare show of unity between Jews, Muslims and Christians who see it as a threat to religious freedom, while doctors warn it could increase health risks by forcing the practice underground.

Die Positionen zur Beschneidung waren bei Anne Will unversöhnlich, am härtesten stritten ein Rabbiner und ein Strafrechtler.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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