German Of The Day: Scherzkeks

February 6, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: Airports, Berlin, Bombs, German, Germans, Germany, Guns, Humor, Language, Security, Tegel Airport Leave a comment

A “joke cookie” here is what we call a wisecracker. You know, a jokester? Take this jokester here at Tegel Airport today (this guy really kills me).

He’s getting ready to board his flight with his girlfriend for their vacation in Florida, right? So they’re having a look at his carry-on bag and he says – now get this – “There’s a bomb inside.” Funny. As. Scheiße! Don’t you think? And original, too. But the real punch line part only comes around a little later: He wasn’t allowed to take that flight, screws up his vacation, impresses his girlfriend big-time forever and then gets charged with another cool German word: Ordnungswidrigkeit (an administrative offense or infraction)! Hardy, har, har. Brilliant joke cookie stuff who needs the crackers?

Some people are just more funny than other people are, I’ve found. Evolution wants it that way or something.

Like this guy’s uncle here earlier in the week (I’m assuming of course it just has to be this guy’s uncle). He walked in through security control at Tegel with a revolver and 43 rounds of ammunition in his carry-on bag because – now get this – he didn’t know it was in there! Ha, ha. Apparently the bag had been given to him when his father died and he had never bothered to look inside before and just grabbed the thing at random when he needed a bag for his flight. Hilarious stuff.

But how on earth do they manage to think any of this up?

“Dieser sensible Sicherheitsbereich ist einfach kein Ort für schlechte Scherze.”

German-Americans So Well-Integrated They Make Other Americans Sick

February 5, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, History, Home Cooking Tags: Ethnic Groups, German-Americans, Germans, Germany, Humor, Immigration, Satire, United States 3 Comments

I mean, like what’s the point of coming to this country if you don’t even try to bore everybody with stories about your ethnic roots all the time? That’s totally un-American misbehavior, if you ask me. But German-Americans are that way. They’re different. They’re kind of like German-Germans, if you know what I’m saying. They’re tricky.

German-Americans are America’s largest single ethnic group (if you divide Hispanics into Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, etc). In 2013, according to the Census bureau, 46m Americans claimed German ancestry: more than the number who traced their roots to Ireland (33m) or England (25m). In whole swathes of the northern United States, German-Americans outnumber any other group (see map). Some 41% of the people in Wisconsin are of Teutonic stock.

Yet despite their numbers, they are barely visible. Everyone knows that Michael Dukakis is Greek-American, the Kennedy clan hail from Ireland and Mario Cuomo was an Italian-American. Fewer notice that John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky with presidential ambitions, are of German origin.

Muslim Preacher Dude Finally Starts Making Some Sense

February 3, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hate, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Extremism, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Islam, Marriage, Religion, Satire, Sex, Terror, Terrorists, Wives 2 Comments

Otherwise known for his extremist views, Berlin Imam Sheikh Abdel Moez al-Eila has proclaimed that a wife should be confined to her husband’s home and should never refuse him sex.

Now he didn’t explicitly say that it had to be really good sex, too but some things kind of go without saying. Now that’s what I call old-time religion.

Claiming that when he first married his wife, she was “pretty and slim” and that she “used to say nice things to him,” al-Eila bemoans that he has been left with a “fat” wife with a “gloomy face.”

If a man is tempted by another woman who “arouses” him in the street, al-Eila claims that the Prophet Muhammad had the remedy when he apparently said that the man “…should go home quickly and have sex with his wife and Allah will immediately remove the urge from his heart.”

The Next Thing You Know They’ll Be Selling These On Ebay

February 2, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: Coal, Electricity, Energy, German, Germans, Germany, Power, Power Plants, Renewable energy, Utilities Leave a comment

Germany’s utilities, battered by the country’s shift to wind turbines and solar panels, would be glad to sell you a power plant on the cheap. They’ll even pack it up and ship it to another country.

The two largest power producers, RWE AG and EON SE, are especially keen to sell their gas-fired plants, rendered uncompetitive by the rise of renewable energy on the one hand and record low coal prices on the other. It’s a relatively easy task to take them apart, move them by truck and ship and reassemble them elsewhere.

“There is a liquid global market for gas turbines. Transport costs are entirely marginal.”

Reproduction Regulators Recommend Rigorous Reform

February 1, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Child Benefits, Children, Demographics, Families, German, Germans, Germany, Kindergeld, Population, State Control, State Spending, Taxation, Traditions 5 Comments

The logic appears to go like this: Germans will only have children if they are paid by the state to do so.

That this money must first be taken from them by the state to only later be given back to them if they behave properly (improperly?) is the first oddity here but not really the issue at the moment – or at least not the one German politicians want to talk about. The problem now is that Germans aren’t having enough children (only 12% of families with children here have 3 or more). They are not following the German reproduction regulation logic like they are supposed to and are refusing to have large families despite regular increases to the child benefit or Kindergeld payments given here.

In an attempt to counteract what is now the German one-child-per-family-if-they-have-any-children-at-all tradition, some reproduction regulators are suggesting that families now be given higher payments for each successive child born. I’m sure this will work just great. Well, I’m kind of sure it might work maybe, I mean.

Of course more money will first have to be taken in from the Germans before some of it can be given back to some of them again but that’s never bothered legislators here before so why break with a tradition like that now?

“Die wirtschaftliche Situation von Familien verbessert sich trotz der staatlichen Unterstützung im Durchschnitt nicht.”

15 Cool German Illnesses You Can Only Get Here

January 29, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria Tags: Arika Okrent, Disease Mongering, German, Germans, Germany, Hypochondria, Language, Sicknesses 5 Comments

Mostly because 1) you probably can’t pronounce them and 2) they don’t really exist.

Germans aren’t hypochondriacs, by the way. They’re Hypochonder.

14. ZIVILISATIONSKRANKHEIT

Zivilisationskrankheit, or “civilization sickness” is a problem caused by living in the modern world. Stress, obesity, eating disorders, carpal tunnel syndrome and diseases like type 2 diabetes are all examples.

Russian Propaganda? What Russian Propaganda?

January 28, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: Annexaion, Crimea, DDR, Disinformation, GDR, German, Germans, Germany, Journalism, Media, Propaganda, Putin, Russia, Ukraine 4 Comments

The speaker of the Russian Duma has asked a parliamentary committee to study a proposal to condemn the reunification of Germany in 1990.

Sergei Naryshkin earlier this week faced scathing criticism of Russia’s annexation of Crimean peninsula when he spoke at the Parliament Assembly of Europe.

Russian news agencies say Communist deputy Nikolai Ivanov on Wednesday proposed a resolution to condemn what he called the “annexation” of East Germany in 1990. Ivanov said that unlike in Crimea, there was no popular vote to support the German reunification.

…Deutsche Welle, an international television and radio broadcaster akin to the British Broadcasting Corp.’s World Service, plans to launch a new multimedia English-language service called DWNews in April. Deutsche Welle President Peter Limbourg has said the new service is designed to “defy [Russian President Vladimir] Putin ’s propaganda.”

Opening The Self-Driving Vehicle Autobahn Test Stretch Will Be Easy

January 27, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Autobahn, Automobiles, Cars, Driving, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Road Rage, Satire, Self-Driving Vehicles 1 Comment

Designing the self-driving German vehicles to operate on them will be a completely different matter, however.

Just think of the programming issues involved:

1) They must all be programmed to travel at a safe speed (no less than 250 kph).

2) Each vehicle must always hog the left lane, continually flash its headlights and always have the right of way.

3) Programming the three-inches-away-from-the-bumper tailgaiting function for one vehicle will be a piece of cake but how are you going to get all the other self-driving vehicles out there to do this simultaneously?

4) Giving each other the finger (the German bird) will also be a real challenge as no one will be in the damned car.

5) And what about when these vehicles reach their final destination? How can you possibly program each one to insist on taking the same parking space?

The stretch on the A9 autobahn — which links Munich and Berlin — is supposed to give the industry the opportunity to “test and optimize new innovations in an adapted infrastructure that offers data connections and measuring tools,” a ministry spokesman said. No official launch date has been announced.

This Sick Lady Right Here Just Will Not Go Away

January 26, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: Depression, Disease Mongering, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Mental Illness, North Rhine-Westphalia, Satire, Stress 1 Comment

Nor will they take a new picture of her, either. It’s just that good.

First she had mental illness issues.

Then she got really depressed because of her mental illness issues.

Now she’s totally stressed out because she lives in North Rhine-Westphalia, which is known to cause a lot of depression and mental illness issues. If you live there, I mean. Or at least it’s known for that now.

Word has it namely (a new study) that people there suffer more than elsewhere in Germany because they don’t move enough, they don’t eat healthy enough food and they drink too much (alcohol). And they’re always running into this wacky lady here, looks like. Wherever they go in North Rhine-Westphalia. I think I need a drink now, too.

Stress ist laut einer bundesweiten Studie am häufigsten für Menschen in Nordrhein-Westfalen ein Problem. Nur 8 Prozent der Menschen in Nordrhein-Westfalen leben in Sachen Bewegung, Ernährung, Stress und Alkohol laut einer Studie rundum gesund.

German Poverty?

January 25, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Automobiles, German, Germans, Germany, Hartz IV, Myths, Poverty, Vacation, Welfare 2 Comments

Nice try. This is another one of my favorite German myths. You can claim that poverty exists here all you want but everybody knows that poverty only exists in the real world and has nothing at all to do with this country. Or could it be that I am the one with an “unrealistic” definition of what poverty is?

Report: About 3.1 million wage and salary earners in Germany had an income below the poverty threshold, according to Saturday’s edition of the Saarbrücker Zeitung newspaper.

You have to understand how Germany works to know that this is ridiculous. For one thing, nobody has to work in Germany if he or she does not want to – ever. They get their rent paid and a low monthly allowance (and then work illegally on the side in a lot of cases) indefinitely = for life, if they want to (everybody know how or knows someone who does). Many people choose to live this way (I know a few personally). Their welfare system is called Hartz IV, by the way. So like, are you a victim of “poverty” if you choose to be? In a country that has the money to pay your way, I mean?

And you must also understand how a German defines poverty in Germany: “Every second low wage worker, some 1.5 million Germans, would not be able to pay for a one-week holiday per year outside their own four walls. About 600,000 workers were forgoing having their own car because they could not afford it.”

OMG. It’s certainly a cold, cruel world out there when you can’t fly off to Mallorca twice a year like everybody else does and/or keep your expensive German sports car on the road as God intended you to (even though you don’t believe in God, but still).

“The number of workers who earn scarcely or marginally more than the government unemployment benefits (Hartz IV) is alarmingly high.”

PS: Speaking of poverty, get your free copy of Dumb Deutsch here. Offer ends Monday.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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