Tag Archives: Humor

Too many rich people here

October 12, 2010 By in Hard Facts Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Germans everywhere are concerned about a very disturbing revelation: There are over 100 German billionaires living in or around the country as we speak, so-to-speak.

These amerikanische Verhältnisse (American conditions) are unfair and unexceptable and incommensurate with the German consitution, or ought to be, because no German should have that much capital at his or her disposal because, well, this is an outrage for some reason.

Of course that these same upset Germans made the first three on the list (the ALDI and Lidl folks) as disgustingly wealthy as they are by always wanting cheapness über alles, that’s another story. Actually, no. It isn’t.

But maybe another story is the fact that Germans live in a so-called Neidgesellschaft (a society infected with envy) and are generally filled with Missgunst (resentment) and don’t want to keep up with the Joneses as much as they want to keep the Joneses down. Or anders gesagt (in other words); there can’t be any losers in Germany, but there sure the hell better not be any winners either.

“Insgesamt erhöhte sich die Zahl der Milliardäre und Milliardärsfamilien in Deutschland im Vergleich zum Vorjahr leicht von 99 auf 103.”

And in case you were wondering…

October 11, 2010 By in Hard Facts Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

(and I know that you weren’t) Germans don’t spend as much time on Facebook as other nationality types do. That’s a real news item, right?

They seem to be more, how-you-say, how-you-say, suspicious, ja? According to some study brought out by a market research institute in Bielefeld, Germans only spend 3.1 hours per week on social network sites like Facebook. By comparison, Malasians spend about 9 hours per week, Russians 8.1 and Turks 7.7. And not even half of the Germans who do have bothered to place pictures in their social network accounts whereas, for instance, 92 percent of the Thais online have. I guess the Thais feel they are more photogenic or something. Or feel more something the Germans aren’t, anyway.

Just thought you might like to know.

Insgesamt sei der digitale Eifer in Wachstumsmärkten wie Brasilien (48 Prozent) und China (54 Prozent) deutlich größer als in Industrieländern wie Deutschland (36 Prozent), Finnland (26 Prozent) oder Japan (20 Prozent).

Germans now to be frightened by Google Carbots

October 10, 2010 By in Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

And they aren’t even here yet. But they will be, soon. Halloween is coming up, after all.

And you thought Street View was scary. This is going to be a real privacy invasion, people. These robotic nightmares have mind reading laser probes that will continually feed on their victims’ brain-stem cells and gather more personal information about them than even they (at Google Imperial Command) will know what to do with. But they will, with time.

Die sind immer und überall.

Turks beat Germans

October 7, 2010 By in High Art Tags: , , , , , , , 5 Comments

In what was sure to have been one turkey of a show, Turkey beat Germany last night on a SAT .1  TV duel game show thingy. Sorry I missed it (not).

Damn. No sooner does German President Christian Wulff assert that Islam “belongs” in Germany than the Turks get all uppity and whoop everybody’s butt.

“Was die Show, außer den Kandidaten, mit den beiden Nationen zu tun hatte, blieb weitgehend schleierhaft.”

Only in Germany

October 6, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , 4 Comments

Possible Al Qaeda terrorist attacks? Who cares? Germans have more important things to get hysterical about: A train station project.

That’s right. But this isn’t just any train station project we’re talking about here, folks. This is the now imfamous “Stutttgart 21” train station project, whatever the hell that means.

I don’t understand this, as usual. And the more I read about it the more I see how I won’t be able to. As far as I can tell, it’s a new station that’s part of a long planned high-speed rail project that would connect Stuttgart to nearby Ulm as part of a major European transportation infrastructure project “that would eventually see a high-speed link running between Paris and Bratislava, Slovakia.”

So far so good. But then “das Volk” in Stuttgart went ape about something. I still don’t really know what it was, other than maybe it’s about having to cut down a few trees to build this thing, but now it’s devolved into out and out Revolutionary Romanticism (German style), complete with heroic demonstrations of resistance and real live police brutality (only after the demonstrators provoked them, of course).

Building a freakin’ train station becomes a Politikum (big political issue) here, in other words. But that won’t really surprise anyone who has spent any time in Germany. This kind of stuff happens here all the time. It’s easy to be part of the German Resistance Movement This Week when what you’re resisting is as, well, about as harmless as it gets. It’s so pitiful it’s not even funny. It’s hilarious.

Once the Stuxnet worm infects a system…

October 3, 2010 By in Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Whether it be a Siemens system in China, Indonesia, India, the United States, Australia, Britain, Malaysia, Pakistan and, oh yeah, now in Germany too “it quickly sets up communications with a remote server computer that can be used to steal proprietary information or take control of the SCADA system.”

Other than in those systems in Iran, I mean.

Just in time for Germany’s the big 20th anniversary reunification party or what?

“I can’t stand it! I know you planned it!”

Bad General

October 2, 2010 By in Helplessness, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

No, not the one staring Harvey Keitel.

There’s apparantly a brisante (politically charged) quote in Bob Woodward’s new poltically charged book, “Obama’s Wars.” And no, it’s not about Obama.

An American general (I won’t give his real name–let’s just call him James Jones) hurt German soldier feelings really bad a while back by telling them “You’re not going to fight anyway, so we don’t need you” (in Afghanistan). The Germans refused to fight with him about it, however.

Can you imagine that? The next thing you know this Watergate Woodward guy will start digging up negative quotes about the President himself.

„Wir haben den Deutschen gesagt, ihr kämpft eh nicht, wir brauchen euch nicht.”

German egotism now to end

October 1, 2010 By in Habitudes, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

In a surprise announcement that absolutely no one interests or would believe one moment if it did, not-so-well-known futurologist Prof. Horst Opaschowski has announced the end of German egotism as we know it. Like in our time or something. Well it was a surprise announcement for me.

The age of the “Ichlinge” (The Me People) is coming to an end, says the Professor. After the finanical crisis, he says, Germans are now turning away in disgust from self-indulgence and mismanagement. They’ve seen the light, so-to-speak. “They want honorable businessmen and honest politicians. The yearning for secruity and solidarity within society is growing.”

His nose is growing too, I bet. Or this guy is terribly and deeply confused. Or maybe he just lives under a rock somewhere in the German pampa. He means well though, I guess, and that always “goes in the pants” over here, as the saying goes (goes awry). 

At any rate, I pity the fool who believes a word Mr. Nostradamus here has to say. But not all that much really. After all, I’m only in this here for number one.

Deutsche suchen Sicherheit und soziale Geborgenheit.

Greenpeace stages atomic art happening

September 28, 2010 By in High Art, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Approving stuff in Germany is always problematic. Disapproval is almost always vorprogrammiert (preprogrammed). That’s why when the German government made clear its intention to extend the country’s use of nuclear power, everybody adhering to the ideological requirements of korrekt German Green thinking disapproved–and that’s a whole lot of folks too.

But at least the Greens at Greenpeace got a little creative about it this time (or as usual?). Protesters projected images with the slogan “atomic power damages Germany” onto the side of several of the country’s nuclear reactors. As far as I can tell, their reason for doing this was to explain to everybody that atomic power damages Germany. Not that they didn’t already know this, the main thing was that this was an Aktion. You know, one of those “happening” thingies?

And I don’t do art so I had to look it up: “A happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered as an art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere (from basements to studio lofts and even street alleyways), are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience.”

Multi-disciplinary? Does that mean they’re gonna get in trouble for doing dis? Nah.

Die Atomkraftwerke in Deutschland sollen im Schnitt 12 Jahre länger am Netz bleiben als nach dem bisherigen Atomkonsens.

Der Stein des Anstoßes

September 27, 2010 By in Habitudes, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , 3 Comments

The stone (as in bone) of contention here actually is a stein this time. You know, those one-liter beer steins they use down there at the Oktoberfest? And the party must really be hopping this year. Attacks with beer steins are way up.

There have been 32 injuries so far, but it looks like the party just got started.

And it’s like sooo international. A Frenchman threw his stein into a group of Italians. The Italians then took their steins and charged the French and one of them ended up in the hospital with a fractured skull. In an unrelated incident, another Frenchmen took out an Austrian. A Serb tossed his beer stein behind him and conked his neighbor in the head. A Canadian got slammed in the head with a stein and the stein actually broke (the Canadian survived). And I guess they don’t even bother to report about all the German stein attack incidents.

Damn. This gives “getting mugged” a whole new meaning.

The large turnout at this year’s festival, brought on by warm weather and the commemoration of its 200th anniversary, could be responsible for the increase in beer stein attacks (of course the large turnout of beer might be responsible too).