Tag Archives: Humor

Green Eco Dictatorship

May 17, 2011 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Green Types everywhere out there know that this Stuttgart 21 train station thingy cannot be allowed to be built, no matter what (the rest of us out there still don’t know just why that is but maybe we’ll figure it out yet).

And now that Stuttgart (Baden-Wuerttemberg) is Green politically, Green Terror Types are starting to come out of the woodwork and beginning to take matters into their own green hands (just like Oma und Opa used to take matters into their brown ones).

Or as Henryk Broder reports it in that provocative way he does:

The Federal Republic made a great step forward toward becoming a Green eco dictatorship yesterday. The project manager for Stuttgart 21, Hany Azer (migration background, by the way) has resigned from his post.

The reasons he named were “hostility and threats” from Stuttgart 21 opponents. Most recently he has only been able to work while under protection of the company’s personal security personnel. This news item should have caused great alarm (but it didn’t).

Oh I dunno. As long as they don’t start wearing green shirts and stuff like that everything will turn out OK… Won’t it?

Jeder Fall von sexueller Belästigung in einem Großraumbüro löst überregionale Schlagzeilen aus. Aber wenn einer der besten Ingenieure der Republik, der unter anderem Projektleiter für den Bau des Berliner Hauptbahnhofs gewesen ist, aus dem Job gemobbt wird, regt sich nicht einmal Frank Bsirske darüber auf.

In what part of Europe is Azerbaijan again?

May 15, 2011 By in High Art Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Yet another breathtaking performance. But the real question is “can Eurovision burnish Azerbaijan’s image (I didn’t know it even had one)?”

And sure they were predictably outrageous, but they’ll never make the top ten.

„Ich habe auf Aserbaidschan gewettet!“

Earth to academia, Earth to academia…

May 13, 2011 By in Habitudes, High Art Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Can you read me?

Eurovision is once again upon us, which is scary enough. But now it’s also time for us to find out that it has something called a “deeper meaning.” All it took for this was 35,000 pounds (€40,000) of British government funding, a few academics and a whole lot of not having a life. Here are just a few of the revolutionary revelations and fun facts about Eurovision that none of us really wanted to know about:

For the first time, there will be a major academic review of Eurovision, including a series of workshops that will be completed this weekend in Düsseldorf, Germany, where the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest is being hosted, and culminate with the publication of a book of essays. 
 
We have been assured that “it really takes international and multidisciplinary perspectives to even start to pick away at what Eurovision means.” Or why anyone would want to (pick away at it), I assume

Eurovision is “56 years of European pop, gender and representational history.” Not to mention the really sucky music part.

“Eurovision is an arena for European identification in which both national identity and also participation in a European identity are confirmed.” Yeah, OK. Whatever.

But of course not even seasoned academics can be expected to be experts at Eurovision geography, folks. Some of my personal Eurovision favorites, for instance, are European nations like Israel, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Morocco and Kazakhstan.

Little technicalities like these can be educational, however. “At least it gets people thinking about a country which normally wouldn’t cross their minds. Maybe they’ll look on a map to try to figure out where it is,”

And…

Eurovision is the world’s largest live non-sporting television event.

Eurovision has grown more since 1989 than either NATO or the European Union.

Eurovision is not just kitsch and lamé, it is “a night when Europe comes together symbolically” (and nasty stereotypes about national identity (in stereo) lead to animosity and symbolic surrogate war).

And last but not least, Eurovision is queer. “Another subject you won’t have to dig too deep into the academics’ footnotes to find is the ‘queerness’ of an annual event that has come to be known as ‘Gay Christmas.'”

So sit back this weekend and enjoy some European unity, televoting and really crappy music. Ho, ho, ho or something.

Not even semi-utopian Eurovision has succeeded in bridging every cultural divide.

No Rubber Stamp Here

May 11, 2011 By in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Hotness Tags: , , , , , , , 6 Comments

This isn’t Animal House, you know.

Clearly shocked by the Northwestern University sex-toy-in-human-sexuality-class-incident in US-Amerika, German Bundestag President Norbert Lammert just isn’t going to take any chances and has banned the sale of condoms in parliament here (they sold them in the cigarette machines–uh, can they buy condoms in Congress too?).

Just in case German parliamentarians get any weird ideas or something, I guess. And I’d rather not think about that if you don’t mind so I support this guy 100%.

“Students watched as a naked 25-year-old woman was penetrated by a sex toy.”

These photos should not be made public!

May 10, 2011 By in Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

You know, the photos proving how Star Trek Special Operations were in fact the ones who killed Osama Bin Laden. But it’s too late now. The Katze is out of the bag.

Someone at German news channel N24 who needs to have his enthusiasm curbed accidentally spilled the beans by actually producing the official logo of the “Star Trek Maquis Special Operations Seals Team VI” (one nasty bunch of 24th century terrorists), the real culprits behind bin Laden’s death, as we now know. Take him out and phaser him.

That explains why the helicopters were so quiet and stuff.

Closer inspection of the logo obtained by N24 should have turned up the notion that the skull is a little on the Klingon side.

Achtung, Achtung: Census.com!

May 9, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

First it was Google Street View, then Facebook, now another sinister new American data octopus is stretching out its tentacles to abuse German privacy rights anywhere and everywhere it can: Census.com!

Oops! False alarm. It looks like it’s a real German census and doesn’t even have a .com at all. But I’m nevertheless sure that the opposition to it will be massive, just like it was twenty-five years ago in West Germany when an uncountable number of Germans (think census–get it?) took to the streets to protest the government’s evil plan and even boycotted the survey.

Oops again already. Another false alarm. Nobody seems to give a hoot this time. Now everybody is lining up to get counted like sheep. What ever happened to civil disobedience? Even a little uncivil disobedience would be OK with me, people. Pitiful.

Statisticians predict that the survey may well reveal the German population is smaller than thought. The statistics office predicts that up to 1.3 million people still counted on regional population tallies may not actually exist.

Glad Sad Mad

May 8, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Or was it Sad Mad Glad? At any rate, Chancellor Merkel is now in hot water for “endorsing a crime” after she said that she was “glad” that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US forces.

A Hamburg judge has even filed a criminal complaint against her because of this “tacky and undignified” remark that only an American could love.

In typically German schizophrenic style, Schadenfreude (the enjoyment of others’ suffering) cannot be openly expressed in The Land of Schadenfreude. It simply isn’t done here (even though it’s done here privately all day long).

The Germans aren’t glad about this issue, that’s for sure. But they’re not sad about it either. Whether they’re mad or not is certainly up to debate, however.

“The Sad Mad Glad series makes the teaching of trustworthiness, responsibility, caring, respect, fairness, and citizenship an experience that parents and mentors will never forget.”

And speaking of terror…

May 6, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Since 2003, EU countries have grudgingly relayed names and other information to US authorities concerning airline passangers who travel between EU and non-EU countries.

This has been complained about and protested against loudly and often(ly) by empörte (indignant) exponents of transparency everywhere who clearly don’t trust the American claim that this is purely an anti-terror measure and only in their best interest.

Now it turns out that these bad American spy policies robbing Germans of their personal freedom led directly to the capture of the Düsseldorfer terror cell last month that had concrete plans for a bomb attack in Germany.

The three alleged terrorists (who also had their personal freedom robbed) were detained during police raids in Düsseldorf and Bochum after authorities decided that they might be getting close to carrying out the attack.

You don’t have to say thanks or anything, Germany. America was just doing its job (rides off into the sunset, fade to black).

„Von amerikanischer Seite sind wir unter anderem auf das auffällige und ungewöhnliche Reiseverhalten der Verdächtigen hingewiesen worden.“

Speaking of Deep Space

May 5, 2011 By in Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

And being that the US “now acts indifferently vis-á-vis sovereign states not only in a global but in an orbital fashion,” I couldn’t help but think of this terrifying (and up until now top secret) example of American hi-tech technology (I don’t really know why I couldn’t help but think of it, however).

Remember: Robot Monster stalks the earth to destroy humanity.

Overwelming, electrifying and baffling or something.

PS: Whatever happened to Fukushima?

Deep Space Nein

May 4, 2011 By in Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , 7 Comments

As the hours tick on, the ever more complex German deep space nein analysis of the Osama-Obama-Drama twists further and further into a seething black hole-ish vortex of convolution, confusion and boundless bitching and moaning.

Here are a few of the latest I particularly like:

“Above all, this conflict takes place in the visual realm, it is a war of images and their reciprocal overpowering through the inspection of that which takes place on the screen.” Huh? So they killed him with a digital camera or what?

“Without photos (of bin Laden’s corpse) conspiracy theories will spread in the US and in the Islamic World.” But not in Germany though, right?

“The Americans made a grave mistake by preventing the necessary tribunal (at an international court of justice) through the liquidation of bin Laden and the overhasty disposal of his body at sea.” So you could still hold the tribunal if they give you the body or what?

“Immanual Kant had realized this well; that this ban on images (they mean bin Laden’s corpse pictures) is the magic behind religious enthusiasm and it is this abstraction of the deduced representation which opens up a greater scope for imagination and passion.” Holy Shit. Even Kant is putting in his two cents worth now.

These are too heavy for me. Let’s try a few of these instead:

“‘Justice’ has become a mere joker card concept used for politically calculated maneuvers.”

“The other side of terrorism are interest and goal pursuing policies that hold to no international law.”

“A fitting translation of ‘enemy killed in action’ could also be ‘executed’.”

Enough already. Let’s finish up with these for dessert:

“Bin Laden was unarmed as he died.”

“Justice, American style.”

“Not a real breakthrough.”

“Bin Laden’s death comes 10 years too late.”

“America’s lost decade cannot be regained.”

“Was bin Laden’s killing legal?”

Stay tuned or something.

Die Übertragung des Militäreinsatzes auf fremden Territorium via Satelliten macht noch einmal klar, dass die Weltmacht USA nicht nur global, indifferent gegenüber Souveränitätsrechten, sondern auch orbital agiert, dass der von Flugmaschinen, Raketen und Nachrichtenautomaten bevölkerte Himmel mit der terrestrischen Einflusssphäre verschmolzen ist.