Tag Archives: Humor

“Angst is the German lifeblood”

March 16, 2011 By in Habitudes, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Die Zeit: How do you explain this (that Germans “like” to be afraid)?

Henryk M. Broder: I think the Germans have been waiting for their punishment since 1945. If the Allies had been at least a little bit more rigid with them, instead of tossing Mars bars from the sky, then maybe the Germans would be in a slightly better constitution today. They’re always thinking: Something’s still coming, and we deserve it.

He’s joking, of course. But maybe he’s not joking.

Man muss nicht 30.000 Kilometer durch Deutschland fahren, um festzustellen, dass die Deutschen gern Angst haben. Sie haben Angst vor Oberleitungen und unterirdischen Bahnhöfen, vor Dioxin im Frühstücksei und vor der Klimaerwärmung. Letztere ist bekanntlich ein globales Phänomen, aber niemand fürchtet sie so sehr wie die Deutschen. Angst ist das deutsche Lebenselixier.

Reality Show 2.0

March 11, 2011 By in Hard Facts, High Art Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

David Lynch (OK, his son) interviewing randomly selected Germans about their randomly selected lives? This ought to make The Blair Witch Project look like Sesame Street.

But I guess that’s the idea behind “Interview Project Germany,” asking real people real questions and then really listening to what they have to say (for real). No bells, no whistles. Just the facts, ma’am. Oh the horror already.

“Viele Leute haben uns ihr Herz ausgeschüttet – manchmal hat es sich so angefühlt, als hätten sie nur auf uns gewartet.”

Cows Still Mad In Germany

March 10, 2011 By in Health, Heconomy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Or angry, at the very least. And wouldn’t you be? After ten long years of taking testing samples from the brains of 21 million cattle in Germany for BSE, scientists have concluded that mad-cow disease maybe sort of never took hold here after all.

But the war must go on. Why is hard to say, but it must. Sicher ist sicher ist sicher (it’s better to be safe than sorry) already. And what’s €150 million a year for a danger to consumers that , uh, hasn’t been a danger to consmers for many years now, if ever at all?

Or as one pissed off medical specialist said: “That is more than twice the budget that all university hospitals have at their disposal for diagnosing infections in their patients.”

Since news of the disease reached Germany, some 15,355 cattle have been killed in so-called stock and cohort culling. All of 12 animals sick with BSE were discovered at German slaughterhouses with the help of rapid tests. The last case was diagnosed five years ago.

Germany Upset That US-Amerika Is Now Too Much Like Germany

March 9, 2011 By in Helplessness, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Normally outraged at the very thought of American Alleingänge (solo runs), concerned Spiegel journalists and countless German Gutmenschen (starry-eyed idealist types) everywhere are clearly upset that President Obama is now backpedaling as fast as he can at the very thought of leading the way to establish a no-fly zone in Libya.

Gaddafi is not rolling over and dying as quickly as expected and this is turning into yet another embarassment for Germany and the rest of the EU because if this keeps up, sooner or later these countries may be forced to actually “do something” themselves and this, as we all know, is not something that they are prepared to do.

Hey, Germany. He’s your President. Too, I mean.

Obama schreckt vor Libyen-Alleingang zurück.

Surprise Terrorist Attack Shuts Down German Bundestag But Nobody Seems To Care All That Much Really

March 8, 2011 By in Helplessness, Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Islamic terrorists disquised as construction crew workers for the Vattenfall power company plunged Berlin’s Bundestag into near total darkness and cluelessness (even more cluelessness than usual) after launching a successful surpise attack upon a power cable three meters below the earth at 09:00 this morning somewhere the-hell-if-I-know-where in Berlin Mitte.

Computers are down, toilets are out, Germany is tumbling leaderless through space and nobody anywhere around here gives a shit.

As one Bundestag representative reported: “We are unable to work.” “Yeah,” his neighbor replied. “And now the damned power is out too.”

The Vattenfall terrorists, realizing that their mission to put Germany in a panic has utterly failed, now say that they will have the power back up again around four this afternoon. Or manjana maybe. Mal sehen (see what happens).

“Wir sind arbeitsunfähig.”

More Miserable Management

March 7, 2011 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

In Germany, I mean.

I just wanted to share these highly German on-the-job motivational sayings with you, for no particular reason.

“Bread molds. Shit stinks. What can you do?”

“I’d like to go on vacation the way that you go to work.”

“I don’t have problems, I have employees.”

“Please shut the door. Or can’t you do that either?”

“Regular failure is also a form of reliability.”

“Ich kann Sie nur auf den Topf setzen. Drücken müssen Sie alleine.”

The ‘Merican Mini-Me Machine Mystery

March 6, 2011 By in Habitudes, Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

While certain experts fear that Washington’s Geheimniskrämerei (secret-mongering) concerning the second launch of the X-37B “Mini-Me Shuttle” might make countries like China and Russia nervous, Germans have once again taken the initiative and become nervous first.

“The Air Force did confirm that this robotic space plane is designed to stay in orbit for 270 days,” one hand-wringing German official said. “But it hasn’t said anything about the mysterious and EVIL new technolgies that are to be tested with it. This kind of stuff bekanntlich (as you know) makes us nervous.”

Indeed, the only information the Air Force handed out to journalists at all was a short list of some of the Mini-Me Shuttle’s “favorite things:”

Mini-Mr. Bigglesworth
Humping the giant laser
Terrorizing Scott
Biting and
Being evil

Experten fürchten, dass Washingtons Geheimniskrämerei China und Russland nervös macht.

Tourists Threaten Kreuzberger Biotope

March 2, 2011 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

“We have no intention of building a wall in Kreuzberg.” Not yet anyway. But if record-breaking numbers of tourists keep coming to Berlin all the freakin’ time, Green politicians may have to reconsider that.

It appears that certain residents in Berlin Kreuzberg have become quite hostile when it comes to hostels these days. They don’t want their colorful Kiez (neighborhood) tainted by tacky tourists. They want to keep on doing the tainting themselves. 

Remember: This is the same biotope where expensive cars go up in spontaneous combustion on a regular basis and McDonalds restaurants are the work of the devil herself. Tourism? Nein danke!

Die Grünen wollen die Zahl der Hostels und Hotels in dem Bezirk beschränken, außerdem umweltfreundliche Unterkünfte mit Ökosiegel auszeichnen.

Germans Won’t Buy The Right Gasoline

March 1, 2011 By in Hi-tech, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Actually, it’s the left gasoline, but still.

Strange, isn’t it? On the one hand, you probably won’t be able to find a nation more vocal when it comes to saving the environment and/or planet than Germany. On the other hand, it would be hard to imagine a nation of car freaks more freakish about their big German cars than Germans are (the dirtiest in Europe – the cars not the drivers).

Anyways, car freaks everywhere in Germany have united and are absolutely positively refusing to buy the latest thing that is good for them, an “organic” fuel called E10 that contains 10 percent ethanol. The reason? Rumor has it that this stuff can cause motor damage on some car models. Everybody’s buying super instead and now there’s a super shortage, which is anything but super.

I guess you have to ask yourself one question, punks: Your planet or your car? You know, kind of like that old Jack Benny gag where the armed thief asks “Your money or your life?” and Jack Benny won’t answer at first and finally replies “I’m thinking.”

Bisher sind die Autofahrer überwiegend nicht bereit, den neuen Bio-Kraftstoff E10 mit zehn Prozent Ethanol zu tanken.

7.5 Million Germans Don’t Read Write!

February 28, 2011 By in Hard Facts, Higher Education Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I mean read right, of course. But is that really all that bad? The other 70+ million apparently believe everything they read. So like what’s worse?

They believe at first glance, for instance, that 7.5 million Germans are completely illiterate (nearly a tenth of the population?). Then they might look a little closer and find out that “only” 300,000 Germans can’t read at all, which is bad enough, but still.
 
Of course that two million Germans “can only read and write individual words” (whatever that means) and another 5.2 million are really, really poor at reading and writing doesn’t sound all that encouraging either, but it’s still a long way off from “7.5 million Germans can’t read.” But hey, somebody has to right this stuff.

Rund zwei Millionen der Betroffenen könnten nur einzelne Worte lesen und schreiben und weitere 5,2 Millionen Menschen scheitern an kurzen Texten, könnten aber mit einzelnen Sätzen umgehen.