It’s Guys Like These Who Give Liberals A Good Name

November 24, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: Business, Christian Lindner, Coalition, FDP, Free Market, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Liberals, Opposition, Political Parties Leave a comment

These are your “classic” liberals, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP). And more power to them.

Lindner has very good reasons to not join a four-party coalition just after he managed to lead the FDP from the political wilderness back into parliament. He has sought to re-brand the FDP as a party with clear principles, delineating core demands that the FDP would pursue: investing in education, promoting digital transformation, lowering taxes, blocking an EU “transfer union” and controlling immigration. After a compelling campaign, the party re-entered parliament with 10.7 percent of the vote.

“It is better not to govern than to govern in the wrong way.”

Failed City-State

August 29, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Government, State Spending Leave a comment

Take your pick it’s both.

Other than “poverty, unemployment, poor infrastructure, a floundering education system, debt, the refugee crisis and crime,” and a dozen or two other things nobody wants to address right now, Berlin is a great place to live.

Jeder fünfte Berliner ist einem Zeitungsbericht zufolge arm und verfügt monatlich höchstens über 841 Euro.

That Guy Down There Works For The Telekom

May 5, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Big Brother, Eavesdropping, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Humor, NSA, Satire, Spying, Telekom, Wiretapping Leave a comment

And it looks to me like they’re trying to save on energy these days or something.

Hey, who needs the NSA when you’ve got the Telekom right here at home in your own backyard in Germany? Doing the wiretapping, I mean.

Hello? Hello out there! Where’s all the excitement about this? The Telekom just got a little more transparent and admitted that it taps 50,000 phone connections a year. It hands out information on a million IP addresses annually, too. No, not to the NSA. To certain German “state agencies” that wish to remain unnamed.

Well there is a big difference here, you know. The difference being, of course, that the Telekom “sticks to the rules” and no one here has any reason to doubt them because the Telekom would not lie to us, I mean you, and besides, Germans snooping on Germans in a country like Germany when not following the rules precisely and to the letter is absolutely unimaginable and thoroughly ausgeschlossen (impossible). Here, I mean.

Die Telekom ist verpflichtet, in bestimmten Fällen mit Behörden zusammenzuarbeiten. Wie viele Anfragen es jährlich gibt, erstaunt dann doch. Neben tausenden überwachten Telefonanschlüssen gibt die Telekom Daten zu fast einer Million IP-Adressen preis.

GroKo Is Just What It Sounds Like

December 15, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Grand Coalition, Language, Neologisms, Social Democracy, SPD, Words 2 Comments

Whoopee or something. Germany’s grand coalition is finally here – a government the Germans didn’t vote for.

GERMANY’S language boffins were first: they coined “GroKo” (short for grand coalition) the German language’s word of the year 2013 (an accolade that is not automatically flattering). To some Germans, this neologism might evoke a “great crocodile” or something otherwise sinister.

What does this really mean? It means that the tail (SPD) has succeeded in wagging the dog (CDU/CSU) and will now force enough of its social democratic agenda (“social” = free lunch) upon the German ship of way-too-big-state to veer it off the proper course, once again. It had been heading, however timidly, toward more private initiative = responsibility and away from your typical German been-there-done-that world of ever more government waste, meddling and control. The CDU/CSU has now become thoroughly social democratized, in other words.

Just like with the “energy turnaround,” everybody will wake up again once they figure out that this is actually going to cost them personally way too much money. Hey, life is a zigzag course. They’ll get back on track again eventually.

PS: Something actually happened on German TV last night that was apparently worth watching.

Der Spiegel: Republicans End Amerika As We Know It

October 1, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helections, Hideology, High Art, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Budgets, Der Spiegel, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Government spending, Hype, Journalism, Panic, Politics, Reporting, Republicans 5 Comments

Uh, that’s bad, right?

America’s Republicans have emerged again as a crazed mob. The conservatives have stubbornly voted for the shutdown and against their own leadership. In doing so, they are only thinking of their own careers and not about their party.

Wow. That’s kind of touching. I honestly had no idea that Der Spiegel was so concerned about the Republican Party up until now.

Amerikas Republikaner erscheinen mal wieder wie ein wildgewordener Haufen. Die Konservativen stimmen stur für den Shutdown und gegen die eigene Führung. Dabei denken sie nur an ihre Karriere und nicht an die Partei.

FDP R.I.P. Greens With Envy.

September 23, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Elections, FDP, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Greens, Politics 3 Comments

With 4.8 percent, the FDP was well below the 5 percent needed to enter parliament, and 10 percent below their showing in 2009. For the first time since 1949, the liberals will not be represented nationally.

The Greens took 8.4% of the vote, enough to win representation in parliament, the Bundestag, but too little to form its preferred coalition with the Social Democratic Party, which won 25.7%.

“The FDP is tough. They have a deep history. They have representatives all over the country, including in the municipalities. They are deeply anchored in society, in the public – so it’s not yet the end of the FDP.”

Nach der Schlappe bei der Bundestagswahl will der Vorstand der Grünen geschlossen abtreten. Volker Beck zieht sich als Parlamentarischer Geschäftsführer zurück.

1,700 Affordable Homes To Be Built At Tempelhof Airport?

September 12, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helections, History, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Airports, Berlin, City Planning, Construction, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Homes, Humor, Tempelhof Leave a comment

Planned by Berlin’s city government? Shouldn’t they figure out how to build one affordable airport first?

I dunno. I still like that Tempelhof mountain thingy plan the best.

Tempelhof, whose stone-clad terminal built by the Nazis in the 1930s, was closed to air traffic in 2008 and its main building is used for events including an annual beer festival. The airfield, which has two runways, has been turned into parkland where visitors jog, roller-blade on the tarmac and barbecue.

“We’re going to prove that three public-sector owners can build a project like this,”

November 23, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Airports, BBI, BER International Airport, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Humor, Klaus Wowereit, Meglomania, Projects, Public Sector, Satire, Social Democrats, SPD 2 Comments

Wowereit said.

The investigation into the massive delays in opening Berlin’s new BER international airport have begun. Managers have been fired and architects have been sued — but what about the capital’s mayor, who has led the prestige project since 2001?

…Hochtief executives quickly learned that the project had changed since Wowereit had been put in charge. Now the walls were to be covered with expensive walnut veneer paneling. The roof was to be built in a futuristic, free-floating design. And the granite used for the floors at other major airports, like Hamburg and Düsseldorf, was no longer good enough. Berlin’s new terminal had to have expensive Jura limestone floors instead.

…Wowereit, a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), also recognized early on that the one person who doesn’t hold any share of the blame is Wowereit himself.

“I don’t see what concrete accusations should be leveled against the supervisory board,” says Wowereit.

Circumcision Decision Revision

July 14, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Church and State, Custom, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Government Interference, Jews, Law, Muslims, Religion, Ritual 1 Comment

Not that there was ever much doubt about it. That it would come to a big backpedaling Aktion, I mean.

The German government says Jewish and Muslim communities should be able to continue the practice of circumcision, after a regional court ruled it amounted to bodily harm.

That’s what can happen when you have that pressing need to fix things that aren’t broken.

“Circumcision carried out in a responsible manner must be possible without punishment.”

That Didn’t Take Long

July 12, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Health, Helplessness, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Church and State, Circumcision, Courts, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Jews, Judges, Law, Muslems, Religion, Ritual, State, The Judicial System, Tradition Leave a comment

“We urge the Jewish community in Germany and circumcisers to continue to perform circumcisions and not to wait for a change in the law.”

A German court’s ban on circumcising baby boys has provoked a rare show of unity between Jews, Muslims and Christians who see it as a threat to religious freedom, while doctors warn it could increase health risks by forcing the practice underground.

Die Positionen zur Beschneidung waren bei Anne Will unversöhnlich, am härtesten stritten ein Rabbiner und ein Strafrechtler.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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