It can’t even stay parked in Germany.
Damn. A car like this doesn’t honk. It blings.
A golden car was pulled over by police on Sunday as it was “too bright.” Police were concerned that the car would dazzle other drivers in the western German city of Düsseldorf.
A police spokesman said the potentially dangerous “dazzling effect” was why the car had been pulled over.
What’s there to be confused about? It’s a golden statue of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In front of the fire department in freakin’ Wiesbaden, Germany. Or it least it used to be there.
The 4-meter (13-foot) statue of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been erected in Wiesbaden on Monday much to the surprise and confusion of the residents of the southwestern German city.
The larger-than-life effigy installed in the city’s Platz der Deutschen Einheit (German Unity Square) depicts Erdogan with a raised right arm, a pose reminiscent of the famous statue of the late former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, which American forces tore down in 2003 during the Iraq invasion…
It was an art installation, part of the Wiesbaden Biennale for Contemporary Art, but was erected without the knowledge of city officials, a Wiesbaden spokesperson told German news agency dpa on Tuesday. This year’s art festival is taking place under the motto “bad news.”
“Wir haben eine Reihe von irritierten Bürgern, die bei uns anrufen. Es ist für viele nicht erkennbar, dass es im Rahmen der Biennale läuft.”
When it comes to Olympic soccer gold, I mean.
Neymar scored the deciding spot kick in a riveting penalty shootout to give Brazil its first Olympic championship in men’s soccer at the Rio Games on Saturday. The host nation won the shootout 5-4 after goalkeeper Weverton blocked Nils Petersen’s fifth-round penalty to keep it at 4-4.
No, wait. Germany has decided its gold is safe in American hands (I knew it was one of those).
Surging mistrust of the euro during Europe’s debt crisis fed a campaign to bring Germany’s entire $141 billion gold reserve home from New York and London. Now, after politics shifted in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition, the government has concluded that stashing half its bullion abroad is prudent after all.
“The Americans are taking good care of our gold… It’s my view that the gold reserves should be stored wherever they might be needed in an emergency.”
But gets caught at Athens International Airport attempting to smuggle half a ton of gold and silver out of Greece to Germany instead.
Wait a second. Aren’t the Germans the ones who are supposed to be smuggling their gold (as in Geld) into Greece these days?
The man was trying to board a Lufthansa flight back to Germany when the airline uncovered nearly 1,000 lbs. of what the BBC calls silver “tablets” in a cargo container.
Strange. Stored abroad since the Cold War in case of a Soviet invasion, nearly half of Germany’s gold reserves are stored in the United States.
Stranger still: The Bundesbank or other independent auditors have never actually physically checked the gold’s authenticity or weight but have relied on “written confirmations by the storage sites” instead.
Now folks are starting to, you know, wonder (paranoia runs deep)? Hey, central banking at its best is all I can say. It’s not that we don’t trust you, it’s just that we don’t trust you.
“Ein Teil der Diskussion in Deutschland ist schon einigermaßen grotesk.”
Observing Hermann 