Russia

March 19, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, High Art, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Arms exports, Crimea, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Military, Pacifism, Profit, Putin, Rheinmetall, Russia Leave a comment

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

Because somebody has to admire them.

In addition to purchasing two French helicopter carriers for $1.6 billion, the Russians turned to the German firm Rheinmetall Defence to build a $132 million modern army training center — Mulino — near Nizhny Novgorod on the Volga.

Ein Gefechtsübungszentrum bei Mulino soll demnach noch in diesem Jahr dem russischen Heer übergeben werden. Im Moment sehe man keine Risiken für eine termingerechte Lieferung und wolle über die Folgen einer etwaigen weiteren Verschlechterung der Beziehungen zu Russland nicht spekulieren, sagte der Sprecher weiter.

Crime Does Not Pay TV

March 13, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Crime, Fußball, German, Germans, Germany, Hitler, JVA Landsberg, Mein Kampf, Prison, Soccer, Sports, Swiss Accounts, Tax evasion, Taxation, Taxes, Uli Hoeneß 2 Comments

Uli Hoeness hasn’t yet begun his three-and-a-half year jail sentence for seven cases of tax evasion (his lawyers are appealing the decision) but when he does, it’s going to be absolute hell.

The JVA Landsberg prison he will most likely be doing time in does not allow cell phones and prisoners have to buy their own TVs! But even more cruel and unusual here is that they don’t allow prisoners to have satellite pay TV receivers. Watching Fußball on Sky just ain’t going to be happening, Uli.

By the way, this is where Hitler wrote Mein Kampf and he didn’t have a satellite receiver, either. I think I’m going to be keeping my eyes on this one.

Das bedeutet unter anderem, dass den Häftlingen kein Fernseher gestellt wird. „Sie müssen sich selber einen Fernseher kaufen und können damit dann die üblichen Kabel-Programme empfangen“, sagt Eichinger. Auch die Kabel-Gebühren müssen von den Häftlingen getragen werden. Da für den Bezahlsender Sky aber ein Receiver benötigt werde, könne dieser nicht empfangen werden.

Germans Worried That Germans Are Spending Too Much

March 11, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Economy, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Imports, Satire, Saving, Spending, Worry 1 Comment

Now that they can’t worry about Germans spending too little for once, I mean.

Everything is geared for disaster here and every German knows it: Exports, imports, consumption, employment. You name it, it’s all working way too splendidly. Das kann nicht gut gehen (that’s never going to work out). Like oh my God we are all going to die.

Ausfuhren, Importe und Konsum laufen prächtig.

PS: But a little more on the serious side, what the hell else are you going to do with your money these days except spend it?

Berlin Is Already Over And Nobody Here Had The Decency To Tell Me

March 10, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: Americans, Berghain, Berlin, Cities, Fashion, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Journalism, New York, Newspapers, Nightlife, Satire, Snobbery 2 Comments

Or at least that’s what one New York Times journalist had to report – after clearly having run into way too many Americans here. And how could that not spell trouble?

The Berlin backlash had to happen sooner or later. No city could be so consistently lauded to the skies for its creative edge, elegant shabbiness, and 24-hour nightlife without eventually coming down with a hard bump. And the bump does seem to have arrived.

…On the international front, the city’s social scene is also getting increasingly Anglophone.

Erschwerend kam hinzu, dass der offenbar aus New York stammende New-York-Times-Autor im Berghain wie auch überall sonst in Berlin ausschließlich auf andere aus New York stammende Menschen gestoßen ist, was die Bedeutung der einstigen Hipsterhochburg für ihn abschließend ruiniert hat; getreu der von dem ebenfalls aus New York stammenden Gegenwartsanalytiker Groucho Marx aufgestellten Maxime, dass er kein Mitglied in einem Club sein möchte, der ihn aufnehmen würde.

Who Would Have Expected That?

March 7, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hypocrisy Tags: Diplomacy, Gas, Germans, Germany, Merkel, Polls, Putin, Russia, Sanctions, Ukraine 1 Comment

Germans Oppose Russian Economic Sanctions – Poll.

Uh, what else can you expect from a country where more than one-third of it’s gas and crude-oil imports come from Russia?

Mrs Merkel is Europe’s most powerful leader, yet her country has so far been the main obstacle to a firm, unified Western response.

Putin Clearly Shocked By EU Sanctions

March 6, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Aggression, Crimea, EU, Germans, Germany, Humor, Merkel, Putin, Russia, Sanctions, Satire, Ukraine 1 Comment

The European Union’s daring suspension of talks with Russia on something or other after Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula has shocked Russian president Vlad Putin so thoroughly that he has just been sighted wandering around in a shirtless daze on his shirtless horse somewhere near what is still the Ukrainian border but probably won’t be for very much longer.

Thank goodness he has not yet found out that the EU is also threatening even “tougher sanctions” unless Moscow swiftly defuses the crisis and Putin puts his shirt back on.

Meanwhile, Angela Merkel is still doing her damndest to put on the sanction brakes but has now announced that she is at least prepared to cast dirty looks at Putin, if he and his horse can be located. And if all else fails, of course.

Die Staats- und Regierungschefs der EU haben sich auf kleine Sanktionen gegen Russland verständigt.

Germany Still Exporting Too Much Stuff

March 5, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: EU, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Putin, Russia, Satire, Trade, Ukraine Leave a comment

The German export surplus is still threatening the rest of Europe, the European Commission says.

Berlin disagrees, of course, pointing out that it imports tons of stuff, too.

Germany imports 24 percent of Russia’s natural gas exports, for instance, more than any other European country. It also has an 8.7 percent share of Russia’s foreign trade. Germany is also Russia’s biggest oil market, taking almost 700,000 barrels a day back in 2012. No dependency here. So quit the moaning already, Brussels, and let us get back to work.

“Der Handlungsbedarf ist erheblich angesichts der Größe der deutschen Wirtschaft.”

Where’s Gazprom-Gerd When You Need Him?

March 4, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Diplomacy, Foreign Policy, Gerhard Schröder, German, Germans, Germany, Politics, Putin, Russia, Ukraine Leave a comment

Probably taking tea at the “dyed-in-the-wool democrat’s” dacha.

When it comes to Russia’s unsolicited visit to Ukraine, German officials go out of their way to say that gas, money or jobs play absolutely no role in Berlin’s predictably soft-spoken, low-keyed, muffled, namby-pamby, wussy, pantywaisted and yellow bellied response to said unfortunate visit.

So now we all know of course that gas, money and jobs are probably playing the biggest role in Berlin’s said sad response to said event.

“Imposing sanctions on Russia because of Ukraine would put German jobs in danger.”

Colombia

March 3, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Pacifism, Profit, Weapons, Weapons Exports 1 Comment

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

Because somebody has to admire them.

PS: But don’t sweat about this one, folks. This sale is illegal, too (thank goodness).

Germany Still Threatened By Fukushima

March 2, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Atomic power, Disasters, Earthquakes, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Natural Catastrophes, Nuclear power, Satire 3 Comments

Or by the ghost of Fukushima, I should say.

Danger! Danger! More “experts” issuing expert warnings here again: Nearly three years have passed since the Fukushima disaster in Japan and Germany is still not adequately prepared for a nuclear incident, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports.

I can only assume that they mean being not adequately prepared for a nuclear incident caused by a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake hitting somewhere off the coast of Bremerhaven in a region of the world that doesn’t “do” earthquakes and causing a massive tsunami that could wipe out one of Germany’s coastal power plants, or maybe even one in Bavaria, provided, of course, that said tsunami could still find a German nuclear power plant that was still in operation, which is very doubtful indeed, but still.

Nope. You can never be prepared enough when it comes to preparing for one of those worst conceivable and most completely unpredictable natural disasters like-in-recorded-history-type-disasters that has already happened somewhere else, I guess.

Deutschland ist nicht ausreichend auf einen nuklearen Störfall vorbereitet.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Germans