Tag Archives: Humor

Talk about coming right (I mean, left) out of left field!

January 6, 2011 By in Habitudes, History, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

OH MAA GAAAWD! Who would have ever in a zillion years expected a shocking Bekenntnis (confession) like this?

Sit down immediately and take your chill pills if you got ’em. Left Party Head Honcho of the East Gesine Lötzsch, of all people, has announced in the marxist (go look it up yourself) daily Junge Welt that she actually kind of sort of leans a bit toward communism at times if not always has and always will. She said, among other things: “We can only find the paths to communism if we go down these paths and try them out.”

And here is where I obviously missed something yet again, I guess. I never would have expected an acknowledgement like this from her in a zillion years either, but only because I was under the distinct impression that being a communist was one of the basic requirements for joining the Left Party in the first place.

No, but seriously, folks. Is this really supposed to be a news item or something?

“Wären morgen die Voraussetzungen dafür gegeben, die Linke hätte keinerlei Skrupel, wie nach 1945 die Demokratie zu nutzen, um sie erneut abzuschaffen.“

Mind Bombs and Messiahs

January 5, 2011 By in Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

When Germans start calling for a new messiah, I, for one, start paying close attention. I even went as far as to read this Spiegel article in its entirety, which, needless to say, doesn’t happen very often.

Trying desperately to stop the current worldwide media trend away from climate issues, concerned environmentalists everywhere are trying desperately to get everybody else concerned about the climate again without appearing to be trying to do so so desperately, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Well it’s not working for me.

The Spiegel‘s panicked and pitiful analysis of what might maybe out to be done to re-kick-start an issue that seems to have sputtered out unexpectedly clearly demonstrates the current greenish cluelessness regarding the, uh, non-matter. To sum it up:

Mind bombs (highly emotional images “that reduce a complex problem down to one core message” — think drowning polar bears) aren’t working. So we need better ones (?).

A new kind of journalism is suddenly necessary (duh) and that’s why “climate activists have begun directing millions in funding into training programs.” What they could possibly be teaching these re-programed journalists is unclear at this time (I thought striving to uncover the truth had been a good enough method up until now, but that’s just me).

And then came “think smaller,” “get quiter” and “more sex.” Finally, something we can all agree upon.

Zu guter Letzt (and last but not least), finally, that disturbing paragraph about “the search for a new messiah.” Talk about creepy. They even mentioned Al Gore. I can share their pain though, in a way, because let’s face it, who on God’s Green Earth have they possibly got left? Julian Assange is currently, well, detained and the President of the United States has already fired his environmental (and every other kind of) round and is so no longer available that it’s not even funny.

If any of you out there have any suggestions as to who might be the next best messiah guy or gal out there, please let me know. Or better yet, pass your suggestions on to somebody who actually cares.

“British science magazine Nature identified two reasons for this loss of credibility. One was mistakes, made public around a year ago, in the UN’s 2007 climate report. The other was the so-called “Climategate” scandal involving the e-mails stolen from the climate researchers at the University of East Anglia.”

PS: I think they ought to maybe go with Focus Magazine’s new marketing strategy (see above) and start selling climate change as some really way cool and wonderful thing.

They don’t call it the S(tress)-Bahn here for nothing

January 4, 2011 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Only in Berlin? I’m not so sure. Remember way back when (getting on two years ago) when the Berliner S-Bahn commuter trains had to go on a Notfahrplan (emergency schedule) bis auf Weiteres (until further notice) because of massive problems they were having with their brakes (they hadn’t been checked or maintained properly)?

Remember then about a year or so later when there was a Not-Notfahrplan (emergency emergency schedule) for the same S-Bahn system when something called “winter” hit?

Well winter has struck yet again and we now have our next Not-Notfahrplan (irregular, 20-minute intervals for the few trains that are still running–about 200 of a 500 fleet) and there’s no end in sight. Two years on, people.

It’s not all that out of the ordinary if you stop to think about it, really. German Baustellen (construction sites) are generally built to last. And to last and to last and to last. And we have to be fair here too when it comes to these difficult winter conditions: Germany isn’t a country that has ever had to deal with things like “snow” in the past, you know–or at least that’s what one must assume.

Personally, I’m confident that these trains will all be up and running on regular schedule next year. In the spring of 2012, I mean.

“Because we can’t remember the hard winters of the 1970s, we resort to the word ‘chaos.'”

Secret “German Street View” Plot Revealed

January 3, 2011 By in Hi-tech, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Hey, what goes around comes around.

A Norwegian daily has just leaked a State Department cable leak leaked by WikiLeaks indicating that Germany is currently working together with the United States on a high-tech secret spy satellite program that would “provide (Germany) an instrument of national power, and politically free it from dependence on foreign sources of imagery.” You know, from sources like Google Street View?

Now that’s what I call transparency.

Germany’s aerospace center vehemently denies such embarassing claims because everybody knows that Germans only build technology that is used for goodness and niceness and so forth blah, blah, blah, but these denials don’t really matter all that much because the head honchos what’s in charge here are actually the good folks over at the German intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or so the report, and these guys aren’t talking for some strange reason, transparency freaks or not.

Germans and secret spy projects? Come on. Don’t be ridiculous. Who thinks up weird stuff like this anyway?

“The cables say the project had been causing friction with Germany’s European Union partners, especially France, which was to be strictly excluded from the project.” 

Germany Pulls Out Big Guns

January 2, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The mullah regime in Tehran must be shaking in its boots now (do mullahs even wear boots?).

More than one hundred (100) prominent Germans have signed an open letter to the Iranian government calling for the release of two German journalists being held by the Iranians under the standard charge of espionage for interviewing the son of some woman down there who is going to be stoned to death for adultry–although I can’t really see why anybody would consider this being a newsworthy item or anything (the getting stoned for adultry part), but still.

The Iranians may regularly sneer in disdain at Merkel, Westerwelle and Co., but when folks like freakin’ Franz Beckenbauer get pissed off, things are going to start happening, and pronto.

And indeed, they already have. Clearly anticipating the Beckenbauer Vorstoß (foray), Iranians in the background (and there certainly seems to be a whole lot of those, don’t you think?) have convinced the woman they are about to murder to come out into the daylight for a few minutes to announce her intention to sue the journalist/spies in question for having had the audacity and/or nerve to interview her son.

And you thought Americans were litigation-happy.

“The woman who has been sentenced to death was allowed to leave her jail cell for a few hours to declare in front of western TV cameras that she would file a suit against our reporters. Does Iran really think that a strange farce like this will improve the credibility of its justice system abroad?”

Have a good slide!

December 31, 2010 By in Habitudes Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Or so the Germans say (Guten Rutsch!), for Happy New Year!

That ought to be easy enough this winter. It’s been the coldest December here in Germany since 1969 (before global warming started screwing everything up).

So slide well into the new year–and slide responsibly.

Der Dezember war zugleich überdurchschnittlich feucht. Am Flughafen in Frankfurt fielen insgesamt 59 Zentimeter Neuschnee, so viel wie noch nie seit Beginn der Aufzeichnungen.

“Handy” finally verboten!

December 30, 2010 By in Helplessness, Higher Education, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

It’s about freakin’ time somebody got rid of that awful “English” word–and all those other so-called English words and phrases that Germans are always throwing around here so disrespectfully as if they were, I dunno, English or something.

Every time I accidentally use the word handy in English conversation (with other native speakers who don’t speak German, I mean) they look at me as if I had just arrived from Mars.

Germany’s Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer has finally struck a blow for German (and English) language preservation by enforcing a ban in his ministry on the use of what Germans working there think are English words and phrases.

Handy is one of them, like I said. Another favorite of mine that I hear in Berlin all the time is Coffee Togo. Well that’s how they pronounce it. I swear. Apparantly many Berliners are actually convinced that the coffee you can now get in those portable styrofoam cups to take along with you is from the country of Togo.

Another good one is life. You know, as in “Life Show?”

Or how about Pizza Hut? Many Germans pronounce it as the Transport Minister would expect them to and actually think that the place is called Pizza Hat.

So knock yourself out, Herr Ramsauer. Help preserve my language. You can crack down on abuse like this as often and as hard as you think necessary. Please. I mean, bitte.

Gegen den Mainstream zu leben, kann schließlich ganz schön in sein.

Chaos must be well organized, ja?

December 29, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Germans, being born anarchists (and born Germans), are genetically programmed to be aware of how important it is that the chaotic and deteriorating world in which we live continue to degenerate, but to have it do so in an “orderly chaotic” and therefore German manner.

That is why the Chaos Computer Club, holding its 27th annual Chaos Computer Club Congress in Berlin this week, has expressed Chaos Computer Club Congress Concern Concerning the recent hacking attacks against “Mastercard und Co.” in wake of recent WikiLeaks revelations (the leaks themselves were carried out quite orderly, causing complete chaos, so they were OK).
 
It appears that these attacks are in fact against something called Chaos Computer Club “hacker ethics” and the interests of those who genuinely strive for a truly transparent society (albeit a deteriorating and chaotic one) and they kindly request that such disorderly chaotic attacks cease immediately, or something.

I tell ya, it’s a dog-eat-dog-hacker-gegen-hacker world out there.

“As the world becomes more chaotic, we can help.”