Some ideas are so unoriginal that they’re almost original. But only almost. That’s why it’s time for something completely different (not) and “Dinner for One, or the 90th Birthday” on New Year’s Eve – in Germany. Yet again.
Happy New Year!
It’s a German New Year’s tradition – an English-language TV sketch that has been broadcast more often than any other program. It will be 50 years old in 2013.
Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.
Because somebody has to admire them.
PS: Beautiful German scam of the week (of the decade?): “Burnout and Depression: Mental Suffering Forces Ever More Victims Into Early Retirement.”
Just in case you wondering about the virtues of stringent gun control laws in a country like Germany…
It turns out that there are 1.4 million Germans who legally own weapons. There are about 5.5 million weapons in circulation, however.
This is a so-called Widerspruch (contradiction), isn’t it? No German would/should own more than one weapon, (and one bullet) would/should he/she? I, for one, feel that German lawmakers should waste no time or effort in passing even more stringent gun control legislation immediately to well, uh, clear this Widerspruch up ASAP real pronto like already.
Die Deutschen haben rund 5,5 Millionen Waffen im Privatbesitz. Legale Besitzer gibt es aber nur 1,4 Millionen.
I mean 10 years of hilarious German-Afghan Police Academy high jinks!
German officials have been training police in Afghanistan for a decade, but a visit to their training center in Mazar-e-Sharif creates major doubts about the effectiveness of the mission. Afghan police remain poorly prepared to tackle the mighty challenges they will face as Western forces withdraw.
“What we want to achieve with the recruits is a change in mentality,” says a German instructor. “More team spirit, a better sense of community, more loyalty. More soccer, less buzkashi*.”
*Buzkashi is the Afghan national sport and is a game in which horsemen battle over a goat carcass.
So have a Happy New Year already.
Germany’s finance minister says the worst of euro area’s debt crisis appears to be over after three years of worries over Greece and other members of the group of 17 European Union countries that use the single currency.
Meanwhile…
Berlin’s mantra about spending cuts in the eurozone is bringing unemployment and spreading hopelessness across Europe.
So take your pick, it’s both.
“I think we have the worst behind us.”
Merry Christmas or something. A 20-year-old was arrested on Christmas Day in the Bavarian town of Weisendorf after a family fight which ended inthe stabbing death of his 15-year-old cousin.
Wow. Front page material even (online): Cindy aus Marzahn herself.
An overweight 6-foot-2-inch Valkyrie of a woman in a pink velour sweatsuit, Cindy plays up the worst stereotypes of Germany’s contemporary version of the welfare queen. She wakes up at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and begins drinking. Her dream man, Enrico, stands 4-foot-10, weighs 375 pounds and works as a bouncer.
Critics call her act offensive, lowbrow and worse, mixing high-minded attacks on her with patronizing depictions of her supposedly benighted fans.
“I have Alzheimer’s bulimia,” Cindy likes to say. “I eat everything in sight and then forget to throw up.”
And it’s particularly popular with Germans, for some strange reason: “In other words, Godwin observed that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis.”
OK, technically this wasn’t online, but the latest unnecessary comparison to Hitler came from a certain Andreas Köhler, head of a German doctor lobby group here (die Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung).
“Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Adolf Hitler, Angela Merkel – the list of leaders is very long when it comes to those who have tried to unite Europe. And these attempts have always failed because no one can imagine living together in one and the same European house.”
Uh, is the doctor in?
Ein KBV-Sprecher sagte der dpa, aus der rein internen Feier seien Sätze ohne weiteren Zusammenhang nach außen gelangt.
When “good guys” like the Deutsche Bank get raided after being suspected of incorrectly claiming some €211 million in tax rebates from the trade in carbon tax certificates, then it’s time to also suspect that the days of this nonsensical European emissions trading have finally reached their end.
In case your were wondering: Emissions trading or cap-and-trade is a market-based approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants. A central authority (usually a governmental body) sets a limit or cap on the amount of a pollutant that may be emitted. The limit or cap is allocated or sold to firms in the form of emissions permits which represent the right to emit or discharge a specific volume of the specified pollutant. Firms are required to hold a number of permits (or allowances or carbon credits) equivalent to their emissions. The total number of permits cannot exceed the cap, limiting total emissions to that level. Firms that need to increase their volume of emissions must buy permits from those who require fewer permits.
Well, it turns out that the European “carbon market” is now flooded and recent EU efforts to fix the system have only served to highlight how lame it is, yada, yada, yada, thus further eroding the price of a ton of carbon dioxide emissions permitted. Government intervention at its best again, in other words.
You know how that old saying goes: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’
EU-Klimakommissarin Connie Hedegaard will den Preisverfall der CO2-Zertifikate stoppen, der nach ihrer Meinung ein System unterminiert, das einst als Meisterlösung für die weltweite Klimaverschmutzung gepriesen wurde.
Peinlich. You know, as in embarrassing or cringe-making? Berlin’s Tip Magazin has just announced this year’s winners for the city’s “Flop 100” Most Embarrassing Berliners and did a really thorough analysis, I find. The only difficult part was narrowing the short list down to 100 losers, it seems.
And no, it wasn’t really much of a contest when it came to selecting number one. The Überflieger (high-flyer – as in airport, get it?) himself, Mayor Klaus Wowereit, was never really in any serious danger of not coming out on bottom, although Pirate clown Johannes Ponader gave him a pretty good run for the money. And no, they won’t be receiving any, or any more than they have already.
Einen Ehrenplatz auf der Nummer 100 bekam Altplayboy Rolf Eden – der wäre vermutlich enttäuscht, wenn sein Name nicht in der Liste auftauchen würde.
Observing Hermann 