It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

The Glühwein (mulled wine), the ornaments, the Christmas markets fortified with concrete blocks…

Xmas

Traditional Christmas markets are opening across Germany amid heightened security, almost a year after a terror attack on a Berlin Christmas market killed 12… The Berlin Christmas market, where a Tunisian attacker rammed a truck into visitors on Dec. 19, is to open Monday night with a candlelight ceremony.

Knapp ein Jahr nach dem islamistischen Anschlag ist der Weihnachtsmarkt an der Gedächtniskirche wieder offen. Betonbarrieren und Polizei sollen das Geschäft nicht trüben.

It’s Guys Like These Who Give Liberals A Good Name

These are your “classic” liberals, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP). And more power to them.

Lindner

Lindner has very good reasons to not join a four-party coalition just after he managed to lead the FDP from the political wilderness back into parliament. He has sought to re-brand the FDP as a party with clear principles, delineating core demands that the FDP would pursue: investing in education, promoting digital transformation, lowering taxes, blocking an EU “transfer union” and controlling immigration. After a compelling campaign, the party re-entered parliament with 10.7 percent of the vote.

“It is better not to govern than to govern in the wrong way.”

SPD Unsure About Which False Move To Make Next

As in being worst. False moves are the only kind of moves Germany’s SPD makes these days.

SPD

Now that the Jamaica negotiations went tango uniform….

Bloodied but proud and steeped in tradition and legacy, the SPD thought it had done the right thing after September’s devastating election result by announcing its desire to regroup as the main opposition party in the new German parliament…

But if the SPD sticks to its opposition role now, its detractors might accuse the party of leaving the country in the lurch and not doing its democratic duty to help ensure a working and stable government…

On the other hand, if the SPD comes out of its opposition shell and agrees to revisit a grand coalition with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, it may well be accused of opportunism and lacking backbone.

The SPD doesn’t have any backbone, you see (that’s the FDP‘s job). So being accused of not having one is clearly out of the question. And if comes to new elections then? They get slammed even harder. Same personnel, same platform. Brilliant leadership there, Martin Schulz. I think we’ve got our German word for the day here and it doesn’t even need a translation: Kindergarten.

Heavy Equipment Operator Uncovers Remains Of Ancient Germanic Civilization

An archaeological find under a playground in Hamburg may now prove once and for all that the mythical Germanic “wet ones” culture actually existed.

Civilization

The “wet ones” or “Nassies” (nass is the German word for wet) were thought to be an ancient “Wald” or forest culture that lived high up in the trees whenever the Romans came marching through town. Or village, actually. Whenever it was raining. Which it practically always does here. Right up to this very freakin’ day even.

Many archaeologists had doubted this culture’s existence up until now, however, attributing the many tales still told by the natives about this “super” albeit wet race to the fantastic realm of mythical bullshit. This may now change.

“The history books might just have to be rewritten,” said Herr Henning, the heavy equipment operator who made the find. “And my backhoe sure the hell is going to have to get fixed. That’s for sure. Who’s going to pay for this anyway?”

Baggerfahrer Henning entdeckte das Nazi-Symbol bei der Arbeit.

CNN: Germany Bestest Nation Von Welt

Not like that pitiful loser nation US-Amerika.

Loser

The United States lands with an overall No. 6 ranking in the Anholt-GfK Nation Brands Index, which measures 50 nations in multiple categories, including governance, exports, culture, people, tourism and immigration/investment. The United States was the overall No. 1 in 2016, but Germany took the top spot this year.

Governance, you say? Wow. Just imagine how the Germans would have ranked if they had a government.

“We are witnessing a ‘Trump effect,’ following President Trump’s focused political message of ‘America First.'”

Fly The Friendly Skies

But not with Jew. I mean, you.

Kuwait

A court in the German city of Frankfurt ruled on Thursday that Kuwait Airways was within its rights to refuse to transport an Israeli because of their citizenship.

In its judgement, the court said it was “not reasonable” for the airline to transport a person if doing so risked severe legal consequences for its employees in Kuwait.

Kuwaiti law prohibits companies from doing business with Israelis.

Damn. Here come da judge. Just a little clarification here: This was a court in Germany today, in the year 2017. Not that you’re thinking it was one of those other kind of German courts from back in the day.

Die Airline darf israelischen Staatsbürgern die Beförderung verweigern. Das hat das Landgericht Frankfurt entschieden.

German Of The Day: Unfassbar

That means unfathomable or mind-boggling. And, well, actually, it isn’t.

Unfathomable

Not at all. It is in fact not in the least unfathomable that of the 244 Leopard II tanks the Bundeswehr has at its disposal (244 tanks for an entire army?) only 95 of them are acutally, well, disposable. That’s, uh – let me do the math here – less than half.

What was I saying the other day about Germany living in a parallel universe (comments)? Do you believe me now?

Please note: These are also the same tanks that are Exportschlager. Another German word. This one meaning export hits. See how it all fits together (not)?

“Das ist unfassbar.”

 

Now That’s Putting It A Little Drastic

But wenn man recht hat, hat man recht. But when you’re right, you’re right.

Hog

Germany Is a Coal-Burning, Gas-Guzzling Climate Change Hypocrite.

Just this summer, German Chancellor Angela Merkel read U.S. President Donald Trump the riot act for pulling out of the Paris climate accord, chiding the United States for ignoring and perpetuating climate change…

Yet Germany’s image as selfless defender of the climate, which was once largely deserved, is now a transparent fiction. Germany has fallen badly behind on its pledges to sink its own greenhouse gas pollutants. In fact, Germany’s carbon emissions haven’t declined for nearly a decade and the German Environment Agency calculated that Germany emitted 906 million tons of CO2 in 2016 — the highest in Europe — compared to 902 million in 2015. And 2017’s interim numbers suggest emissions are going to tick up again this year.

Saudi Arabia AND Egypt

Beautiful German weapon sales of the week.

Egypt

Because somebody has to admire them.

The German government approved nearly €450 million ($526 million) worth of weapons exports to Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the third quarter of 2017, more than five times the €86 million it sold in the same quarter of last year.