Left Now Right?

August 5, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: AfD, Aufstehen, Borders, German, Germans, Germany, Left Party, Migrants, Political Parties, Sahra Wagenknecht Leave a comment

No, let’s call it Right Goes Left. How about Left Right Left?

This perennial leftist Frontfrau (lead singer) has just thrown up her hands in desperation about what to call her new collective (collectivist?) lefty movement of malcontents (there’s a big demand for movements like that these days) and finally settled for #aufstehen (stand up, rise up).

Leftwing politicians are singing the praises of border control while rightwingers call for expanding the welfare state. Old political certainties could be turned upside down in Germany this summer as the far ends of the country’s political spectrum both moot a “national social” turn.

A new leftwing movement soft-launching in Germany in August aims to part ways with what one of its founders calls the “moralising” tendency of the left, in an attempt to win back working-class voters from the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

SPD-Vize Stegner kritisiert das Projekt als “Egotrip notorischer Separatisten.”

German Of The Day: Allzeittief

August 3, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: AfD, CDU/CSU, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Migrants, Political Parties, Polls, Surveys Leave a comment

That means all-time low.

According to the “Germany trend” survey taken by the ARD, the popularity of Germany’s dominant sister party union of CDU/CSU (Angela Merkel/Horst Sehofer) has dropped to 29 percent, its all-time low. Meanwhile, the ostracized right-wing populist party AfD has climbed to 17 percent, its highest rating so far. If an election were held this Sunday, the union and the SPD (the current grand coalition government) would no longer have a majority and land at 47 percent.

Now I’m going to go way out on a limb here but I think all of this has something to do with Germany’s still unresolved migrant crisis.

Union sackt auf Allzeittief – AfD steigt auf Rekordhoch.

One Small Step For Europe

August 2, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Angela Merkel, Europe, German, Germans, Germany, International Law, Italy, Law, Libya, Migrants Leave a comment

One giant leap for Europe-kind?

An operation in which an Italian towboat rescued more than 100 people in the Mediterranean and returned them to Libya may have been in breach of international law, the United Nations has said.

According to the Spanish charity Proactiva Open Arms, the Asso 28, an oil rig support vessel, rescued 108 people from international waters on Monday and took them to Libya, their country of departure.

Die “Asso 28” hat Migranten in Seenot an Bord genommen – und nicht nach Italien gebracht, sondern zurück nach Libyen. Die Regierung in Rom jubelt, doch die Aktion war vermutlich illegal.

Germans Sitting Too Much – In Drafts

August 1, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Belief, Drafts, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Sitting Leave a comment

Whether at work or in front of the TV, Germans spend around 7.5 hours per day sitting, a study has found.

But worse still, much of that time these Germans are sitting in deadly German drafts (see German oddity 14).

14. A real German is a faithful practitioner of “Stoßlüftung” or inrush airing. This is when someone quickly rips several windows wide open for a few minutes to let some fresh, preferably ice-cold arctic air into what had been your warm and cozy apartment or office up until then. When it comes to leaving windows open for a longer period of time, however, Germans are clearly divided into two distinct ideological groups. The first group is the “shut the window right this minute because there’s a draft” faction (Germans are terrified of drafts). The second group is the “open the window again immediately because it smells like the cat house at the zoo” faction. Strangely, these two groups appear to be equally distributed in homes and offices across the nation so the fun with windows never stops here.

Fresh air or deathly drafts? Germans’ belief in the myth that breezes make you sick is completely overblown.

The Short Answer Is No

July 31, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Climate Change, CO2, Coal, Coal-Firing Power Plants, Energy, German, Germans, Germany, Lignite, Nuclear power Leave a comment

Not without nuclear energy.

If Germany Can’t Quit Coal, Can Anyone Else?

It would seem like a major step toward Prime Minister Angela Merkel’s goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent of 1990 totals by 2020. But German utilities just can’t seem to quit burning coal. Some power plants are switching to cheaper imported black coal from the United States, Russia, or Colombia. And at the same time, Germany is also digging more lignite, or brown coal. Lignite is 50 percent water and yields much less energy than the shiny black anthracite. But lignite is easy to bulldoze from massive strip mines that dot Germany’s northwest and eastern border with Poland. Among Europe’s power plants, Germany’s brown coal stations constitute six out of 10 of the worst polluters.

“It’s like organizing your own funeral.”

When They Go Low We Go Lower

July 30, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: AfD, Angela Merkel, CDU/CSU, German, Germans, Germany, Political Parties, Polls, Refugees, SPD Leave a comment

Support for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc, trying to move beyond a bitter dispute over migrant policy that threatened the coalition, has fallen to its lowest level since 2006, a poll showed on Sunday.

But Angela Merkel keeps on smiling. I don’t know what they pump her up with but I want some of that stuff, too. Reality enhancement enchantment medication, I figure. “It’s good to be the Empress.”

The Social Democrats (SPD), who share power with the conservatives in Merkel’s coalition, failed to capitalize on those losses, also falling one point to 18 percent.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was unchanged at 15 percent while the Greens rose 2 points to 14 percent, their best showing this year, according to Bild am Sonntag.

I Know Nothing

July 27, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Crime, Dieselgate, German, Germans, Germany, Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen, VW Leave a comment

Nothing!

Uh, yes you do. Former VW boss Martin Winterkorn has maintained from the start of the Dieselgate scandal that he knew nothing about the manipulative tricks going on in his company. But it’s now coming out that a high-ranking VW engineer who knows better is cooperating with the German prosecuting attorney’s office and spilling the beans on Winterkorn big time. This is going to cost VW a whole lot more than they figured on, I bet. Even the Germans are holding them responsible. Think of that. And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of guys. Talk about systematic criminal activity.

I mean, do these people really think they can get away with this stuff and nobody is ever going to squeal on them? I guess it’s too lonely up there at the top when you’re, well, on the top, in your little I know nothing dream world.

„Ich bin bestürzt über das, was in den vergangenen Tagen geschehen ist. Vor allem bin ich fassungslos, dass Verfehlungen dieser Tragweite im Volkswagen-Konzern möglich waren.”

But That’s Only Because Two In Three Germans Don’t Have Any Friends

July 26, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hotness Tags: Friends, Friendship, German, Germans, Germany, Sex, Surveys Leave a comment

Survey: One in three Germans thinks sex with friends is okay.

The study was conducted ahead of the “International Day of Friendship” on July 30th, and asked 2,045 Germans their opinion about all aspects of friendship.

A full 60 percent of those surveyed said that, in a friendship between a man and woman, there stands a “risk” that one of the two will seek more than just friendship. About 20 percent of those surveyed said that a pure friendship between men and women simply is not possible.

„Friends with benefits werden nun anscheinend von der breiten Bevölkerung akzeptiert.”

Today The Bottles, Tomorrow The Cans…

July 24, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Beer, Bottles, German, Germans, Germany, Heatwave, Recycling Leave a comment

Germany marches on. It must. Even though Germans don’t like beer cans very much.

Germany running out of beer bottles as heatwave fuels demand – The situation is so acute that one local brewer has issued an emergency appeal to drinkers, calling for them to return their empties.

“We need your help!” the Moritz Fiege brewery in the city of Bochum wrote on Facebook. “Great weather + great beer = serious thirst. The catch: although we regularly buy new bottles, we’re running out. So before you go on your summer holiday, please be sure to return your Moritz Fiege empties to your local off license. Make your motto: first the empties, then the holiday!”

“This issue is causing an industry-wide drama.“

“Explosive Narcissism And Vulgar Capitalism”

July 23, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Defense, Donald Trump, Europe, German, Germans, Germany, Journalists, Media, NATO, Polls 1 Comment

Are bad things, I guess. What the people over at Spiegel Online really want is vulgar narcissism and explosive capitalism, I assume.

I could only read a paragraph or two of this little gem because… I dunno. Try reading it yourself and see. But the just of it is, I believe, that Donald Trump is really, really bad and it’s high time for Europe to start doing more for itself. Knock yourself out on that one, folks.

More than half of Germans think Europe can defend itself without military backing from the United States, a poll showed on Monday, less than two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump said he could withdraw support.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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