2 Intellectual 4 Me

Nope, this latest Spiegel cover is not what I would call “defamatory or racist.” It’s just particularly stupid. But everybody seems to be having hurt feelings about it and calling each other names because of it and stuff like that, which always warms my heart. So keep running with it, folks.

Spiegel

“Our Greeks – Taking a closer look at a strange people.” Takes one to know one, I guess.

And always remember: “Spiegel readers know more” (one of the magazine’s more popular slogans). And they also love to look down their noses at people who read the Bildzeitung, for instance. There is a big difference, you see? Me, neither.

SPIEGEL-Leser wissen mehr!

Germany Defeated Yet Again

No, it wasn’t World War III. It was the Endkampf (final battle) for Bailout III. Like, don’t these people ever get tired of surrendering?

Defeat

Europe woke up on Monday to a lot of headlines about the humiliation of Greece, the triumph of an all-powerful Germany and the subversion of democracy in Europe.

What nonsense. If anybody has capitulated, it is Germany. The German government has just agreed, in principle, to another multibillion-euro bailout of Greece — the third so far. In return, it has received promises of economic reform from a Greek government that makes it clear that it profoundly disagrees with everything that it has just agreed to.

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

Little Oskar Thinking Out Of The Box Again

Well known for his refreshing viewpoints, Mr. ex-SPD, ex-Left, ex-Bolshevist, ex-you-name-it Oskar Lafontaine himself has come up with a brilliant new idea to save Greece from its upcoming euro Grexit exit: Get rid of the euro first.

Oskar

Being the true radical thinker that he is, he seems to have devised a radical new European economic system by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without having to use a medium of exchange like dirty, filthy, old (or in his case new) money. And the way things look right now, Greece will be the first country to get the chance to test this out in a big way.

“Der Euro ist ein Rückschritt im historischen Projekt der europäischen Integration. Der Euro ist schon gescheitert, wir dürfen uns da keinen Illusionen hingeben.”

Good Thing Germans Have Strict Gun Control Laws

Otherwise a whole lot more people might have gotten killed here.

Ansbach

A man shot and killed two people in the southern German region of Bavaria on Friday, and fired at two others before being apprehended by authorities, police said.

The man, whose identity has not been released, shot a woman at about 6:30 a.m. from his locally-registered Mercedes in the town of Tiefenthal, near Ansbach, police said in a statement.

The woman died at the scene and the man fled in his car, then fatally shooting a man on a bicycle in the nearby town of Rammersdorf, according to police.

The suspect also shot at a pedestrian and the driver of another vehicle, but hit neither, police said.

Der Tatverdächtige war “ein ganz normaler Ansbacher.”

At Last!

Fashion for the rest of us. At Berlin fashion Week. Wear else?

Fashion

And speaking of aliens…

Angela Merkel FORCED to release secret UFO files German government fought to withhold – ALIEN investigators hope the release of German government files on historical UFO sightings will be a milestone in their quest for evidence of extra terrestrial life (when they write ALIEN investigators here they don’t actually mean ALIEN investigators, they mean alien INVESTIGATORS – I think).

“One thing is certain they won’t reveal any secrets about hidden alien technology or alien bodies, but then again we can always hope.”

Greeks Apologize And To Pay Back All Debts Tomorrow

The nation of Greece said sorry to the European Union with a present of an enormous wooden horse.

Horse

Left outside the European Central Bank in the dead of night, the horse has now been moved into the ECB’s central lobby where it is proudly on display.

A gift tag attached to the horse, which is surprisingly light for its size and has small holes along the length of its body, suggested that it should be placed in the bank’s vaults overnight to avoid it being targeted by thieves…

Oddly, Greek representatives in Brussels have hinted that they may soon be in a position to settle their debts and have puzzled the French and German banks that hold their loans by asking if there is any discount for cash.

PS: Thanks for the link, A.K.

Germans So Shocked By Greek No They Decide To Go On Big Fat Greek Vacation

Stunned by the Greek no yesterday and the end of European civilization as they know it, millions and millions of German tourists have spontaneously decided to get their minds off it all by going on vacation to Greece again this year, just like the millions and millions of other Germans who did the same thing last year.

Tourists

Not that it matters anymore or anything, but tourism used to account for 18 percent of what used to be the Greek economy.

“We are still taking bookings for Greece and there is no change in the levels.”

German Of The Day: Schwitzkasten

That’s “sweat box” but actually means stranglehold. You know, like being stuck between a rock and a hard place?

Tsipras

Is the current five-year Greek drama finally going to come to an end today? Hardly, it already ended quite a while ago, the real drama having actually begun long before that, of course, generations before. The name of the drama is “Living Beyond Our Means” and now the current government wants to give Greek voters the illusion that it gets the chance to turn back the clock with one final vote, a final vote that doesn’t actually mean anything, of course, because the money is long gone and nobody is going to give you any-more-anymore. Said current government has seen to that.

It took many, many years of concerted effort – on the Greek side – to get this far, but at least now we will all have an “official” result: However Greece votes today it has already voted to escape “financial asphyxiation” by committing financial suicide.

After all, debt and guilt – “Schuld” – are the same words in German.

German Of The Day: Hand Over The Money Or I’ll Shoot!

Greece

And here you thought that Germans didn’t have a sense of humor. Galgenhumor (gallows humor), OK, but humor all the same.

Public broadcaster ARD, in its Morgenmagazin breakfast show, lampooned the tit-for-tat battle that has ensued between German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Greek counterpart Yanis Varoufakis, 54, in a video clip based on the 2011 French film The Intouchables, depicting the unlikely friendship between a wealthy quadriplegic and his African carer. Schaeuble, 72, has been confined to a wheelchair since he was shot by a deranged man in 1990.

But Can I Keep My Torpedo?

As you may know, German authorities are really touchy when it comes to gun control. Sort of. But it doesn’t just stop there. They totally freak out and call the Bundeswehr if they find out that you have a tank in your cellar. Skeleton in the closet? OK. But a tank in the cellar? No way.

Like take a chill pill already, officer. It wasn’t even loaded.

Tank

Police searched a villa in a wealthy suburb of Kiel on Wednesday and found a Second World War tank, a torpedo and other weaponry in the cellar. On Thursday they were still working on removing the tank.

“He was chugging around in that thing during the snow catastrophe in 1978.”