That means explosive vest. You know, the kind your run-of-the-mill German industrial metal pyrotechnical hard rock bands use these days?
Damn. This gives pop culture a whole new meaning.
The German shock-rockers have launched their world tour with a bang, with frontman Til Lindemann donning an explosive vest at a Vienna concert. Rammstein are headlining top festivals from Moscow to Buenos Aires.
“Ich muss zerstören, doch es darf nicht mir gehören.”
I’m gonna dig myself a hole…
When Germans refer to a “black zero” these days they mean a balanced fiscal budget with no red ink. What a concept. If it weren’t so unthinkable (I am from US-Amerika and we’re clearly too smart for that) I would have a “quasi-religious fixation” with it, too. More power to you, Wolfgang.
In his aversion to the pursuit of full employment through fiscal policy, Mr Schäuble is an obvious heir to Eucken. This is also true of prominent German economists who, during the eurozone crisis, have ignored the effects of austerity on demand, out of a deep-seated belief that structural reforms can solve all problems.
That means a city on the front or on the front-line. You know, like the Berlin of today?
Or at least that’s what certain people here in town seem to think about it. Some are even calling it a failed state.
Take a deep breath here now. They don’t really mean that, of course, but in terms of an upcoming city election the situation here is pretty dramatic for a large number of Berliners who might want to vote. Due to the continued chaos at the various Bürgerämter (citizen’s offices) throughout the various districts of the city (unbelievable waiting times for appointments being the main problem here) it is estimated that some 280,000 new and newly-moved Berliners will not be able to register to vote in time. They are now being encouraged to contest the results of any election they were not able to take part in.
One election researcher says that the last time Germany experienced this kind of chaos was shortly after World War II.
Ein Wahlforscher sagt, dass es ein derartiges Chaos in Deutschland zuletzt kurz nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg gegeben habe. Berlin ist wieder Frontstadt, erfreulicherweise ohne Bombardements.
Ouch. What a frightening thought. If you’re the German national soccer team coach, I mean.
Uhm, I’m no Fußball aficionado or anything but is there such a thing as a Zweite Liga (second division) when it comes to national teams?
A German right-wing politician who caused outrage by racially disparaging footballer Jerome Boateng followed up Friday by saying the national team is “no longer … German in the classical sense”.
Alexander Gauland, of the Alternative for Germany (AFD) party, also questioned the loyalty of German-born international Mesut Ozil, who is of Turkish origin, for making the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
“Die Nationalmannschaft ist schon lange nicht mehr deutsch.”
Huh? Since when?
“A spokesman for the prosecutor declined to comment on whether the two suspects posed as refugees or sought asylum in Germany or elsewhere in Europe.”
Germany arrested three Syrian citizens on suspicion of planning an Islamic State terror attack in the city of Düsseldorf, the country’s top prosecutor said Thursday.
Two men, identified as Saleh A. and Hamza C., joined Islamic State in Syria in early 2014 and received orders from the organization’s leadership to carry out an attack in the bustling old town in Düsseldorf, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement on the arrests. The two plotted to attack one of Düsseldorf’s main streets with two suicide bombings, and then “to kill as many passersby as possible with guns and further explosives,” the prosecutor said. The two left for Turkey and then separately traveled to Germany via Greece in March and July 2015, the prosecutor said. Hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants also entered Europe via Turkey and Greece last year.
Über Balkanroute eingereist
PS: And call me bekloppt (wacky), but I think I detect a pattern here, too.
Talk about your politically incorrect behavior. Why this is practically bordering on common sense!
In a recent interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung, the incarnation of Avalokitesvara and the Bodhisattva of Compassion himself, otherwise known as the Dalai Lama, had the unmitigated audacity to weigh in on Germany’s refugee policy, or the lack of it, and like, you know, indirectly criticize it and stuff.
Noting that the moral superpower “cannot become an Arab country” and that “there are too many refugees there in the meantime” and that “these refugees should only be permitted to stay for a limited amount of time before going back to rebuild their home countries,” the brazen Tibetan monk has caused a violent wave of Schnappatmung (wild gasp-like breathing fits) among the morally indignant everywhere. In Germany, I mean. And there’s lots of them folks, believe you me.
Just who does this guy think he is? Other than the freakin’ Dalai Lama, I mean. And he calls himself a Christian man.
“Deutschland kann kein arabisches Land werden.”
And it must be those glasses that are making them so suspicious, right? She tried to kill a police officer in Hanover in February.
Reporters from German public broadcasters WDR and NDR as well as the daily newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung” were able to gain access to chat logs between Safia S. and a fellow Islamist in Hanover.
The chat logs showed that the 15-year-old met with IS members during a trip to Turkey in January. She intended on crossing into Syria, but wrote that there was a “change of plans.”
The IS members asked her to travel back to Germany to “surprise the unbelievers.”
“They told me it has a greater benefit,” Safia S. wrote, adding that it would be “really fun.” She also wrote about a “martyr operation.”
Die 15-Jährige Schülerin Safia S., die im Februar einem Polizisten am Hauptbahnhof in Hannover in den Hals stach, soll im Auftrag von ISIS gehandelt haben!
Police in Germany are appealing for sightings of former members of the infamous far-left Baader-Meinhof terror group, who appear to have come out of retirement to attempt armed robberies to fund their lives on the run.
Or to fund their lives on the limp, with a stroller, is more like it. They call these strollers Rentnerporsche (pensioners’ Porsches) over here, by the way.
And these terrorists may be old and gray and in the way but they still mean business. Now they’re even robbing, now get this, gulp; Supermarkets!
Überfielen Ex-RAF-Terroristen Supermärkte?
A prime example of how Germans can just create cool new words/concepts at will, this means, I think, the morally overbearing attempt (by Germans) to compensate for their history. Think of this within the context of the current refugee crisis, if you please.
Germany’s new weight in the world is provocative but when German politicians attempt to deny its existence and try to flee instead back to their “dealing with the past”-policy (Vergangenheitspolitik) they irritate all the more.
Germany’s refugee policy is a textbook example of this German sickness (according to Heinrich August Winkler), a separate path (Sonderweg) par excellence. The federal government is now completely isolated, ergo its policy has also been refuted. And the motive behind this German madness lies in – what else? In its overbearing attempt to compensate for history.
Deutschlands neue Größe provoziert, doch wenn deutsche Politik diese neue Größe verleugnet und sich stattdessen in ihre Vergangenheitspolitik flüchtet, dann provoziert das noch mehr.
Die deutsche Flüchtlingspolitik ist für Heinrich August Winkler nun ein Lehrbuchfall deutscher Krankheit, ein Sonderweg quasi wie gemalt. Denn die Bundesregierung sei völlig isoliert, ergo auch widerlegt. Und das Motiv für diesen deutschen Irrsinn liege – wo sonst?! – in geschichtskompensatorischer Moralüberhebung.
PS: And who says the Left can’t have it’s cake and eat it, too?
Meaning that was a close call.
For a moment there it almost appeared as if the city of Berlin might somehow actually manage to complete the construction of the Mother of All Politically Engineered Airport Absurdities by the end of 2017. But only for a moment. Whew. The more things don’t change, the more they stay the same.
Travelers are set to wait still longer for Berlin’s much-delayed new airport to open, as city media report that a provisional opening date in late 2017 is no longer achievable.
Niemand hat die Absicht, einen Flughafen zu errichten.*
*Nobody has the intention of building an airport. Get it? You know, like nobody had the intention of building a wall? The only difference is that they got that wall up in no time.
Observing Hermann 