Tag Archives: Language

But What About Datenschutz?

March 10, 2016 By in Hate, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means data privacy and is way big medicine here in Germany indeed. Just go ask Google, Facebook, the Boy Scouts, whoever.

Names

So like how on earth could German counter-terrorism police be “investigating documents (illegally acquired) said to reveal the identities of a large number of fighters of so-called Islamic State?” Without their expressed written permission, I mean. Do Julian Assange and Edward Snowden know about this?

Don’t these terrorists have the right to keep the German state from snooping into their, uh, Islamic state? Somebody call the nation’s Datenschutzbeauftragter (data protection officer) immediately. This is an outrage or something.

22 000 Namen von Islamisten enthüllt | ISIS-Geheimdienstchef verlor USB-Stick mit Terrordaten

German Of The Day: Heile Welt

March 4, 2016 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Heile Welt

To grasp this trauma (the refugee crisis) it helps to understand the German zeitgeist that developed (mainly in the former West Germany) in the post-war years, and lingered in the reunited country. Germans call it Heile Welt. The term means something like “wholesome world”, and describes an orderly, idyllic state. It may connote the nurturing environment parents create for their children to protect them from life’s ugliness, or a private oasis of peace amid public chaos. It was a state of mind that Germans clung to after the second world war…

Foreigners were allowed into this Heile Welt, but not entirely accepted. To man its assembly lines, Germany invited workers from southern Europe and especially Turkey. The millionth arrived in 1964 and got a motorcycle as a gift. By the time the programme ended in 1973, 4m foreigners lived in West Germany. But they were called “guest workers” rather than immigrants, on the premise that they would ultimately leave again. Unsurprisingly, most stayed. Yet mainstream Germany continued to see itself as ethnically homogenous—a Heile Welt in a tribal sense…

Gnomic wisdom: Some Germans react by fleeing into ever tinier Heile Welten. “We are becoming ever more like our garden gnomes.”

German Of The Day: Durchwinken

March 1, 2016 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means to wave through.

Merkel

And Angela Merkel HERSELF has just learned, like just today, an entire new German sentence with the word Durchwinken in it: Die Politik des Durchwinkens muß beendet werden. That means: The policy of just waving refugees through from one country to the next must now be stopped.

Like I said, she just learned it. It is quite a mouthful, isn’t it? So it’s certainly easy to understand why it took her this long to learn it.

“A refugee does not have the right to say ‘I want to be granted asylum in a particular country’ in the European Union.”

“Es gibt eben nicht ein Recht, dass ein Flüchtling sagen kann, ich will in einem bestimmten Land der Europäischen Union Asyl bekommen.”

77 + 13 = Null Ahnung

February 26, 2016 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Null means zero in German. Null Ahnung means “I have no idea” or “I haven’t a clue.”

Gone

So just do the math:

The other day we found out that 77 percent of the migrants who came to Germany in January did so without having any identification papers. Now we learn that 13 percent of all migrants located in Germany just get up and, well, disappear. They get registered with the authorities somewhere when they arrive and then puff! They’re gone.

Ergo… When it comes to migrants in Germany, this 77 + 13 = uhm, wait a second… nearly 100 percent “I have no idea” or “I haven’t a clue” about what the hell is going on here in this country anymore. And something tells me I’m not the only one.

Knapp jeder achte registrierte Flüchtling verschwindet nach seiner behördlichen Erfassung.

This Reveals The Dark Side?

February 23, 2016 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hate, Helections, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Like just right now for the first time already or something? Ain’t nothing new here. I thought the BBC was more im Bilde (in the picture) than this: “Migrant attacks reveal dark side of Germany.”

Arson

This dark side has always been here, folks. It’s just that for some inexplicable reason, a whole lot of people – like Angela Merkel, for instance – don’t seem to be aware of it. You would think that she, of all people, would know what country she has “under” her (it’s about half starry-eyed Gutmenschen and half of those arsonist folks, just in case you were wondering) but sometimes, I guess, even she is going to be the last one to know.

Oh, another example of her being the last one to know: The coming introduction (reintroduction?) of a real live German border fence (see Austria). Better late than never, Frau Merkel. Although it’s probably too late for any graceful exit you may still have been hoping for.

Keep your eyes peeled on the coming regional elections in Germany, folks! Beginning on March 13 at a media outlet near you.

Attacks on Germany’s refugee shelters are increasingly common. Government statistics reveal that last year there were about 1,000 such attacks, five times the number reported in 2014.

German Of The Day: Unproblematisch

February 19, 2016 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means problem-free or uncomplicated.

Exports

And that is what Germany’s economics minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) has to say about the significant rise in German arms exports. It’s problem-free. And totally uncomplicated.

He is the economics minister, after all. What could be more “economical” than increased arms sales? And you also need to know that this guy took office in 2013 promising to significantly restrict arms exports. So, well, there. At least his heart is in the right place.

SPD-Chef Gabriel hatte sein Amt Ende 2013 mit dem Versprechen angetreten, die Rüstungsexporte deutlich einzuschränken. Nun räumte er ein, dass seine Halbzeitbilanz „Licht und Schatten“ aufweise.

Family Brown

February 14, 2016 By in Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Satire alarm! Please remain calm.

This neo-Nazi dude had a one-night-stand with this Eritrean chick seven years previously who is now being abgeschoben (deported) because of Ausländer raus (foreigners out) and all that so now he has to take care of his daughter who was the result of their short liaison.

Der guckt nicht traurig, der guckt nachdenklich. Er hat sehr viel nachgedacht früher.

PS: Today’s your last chance to get your FREE COPY of the highly acclaimed Smashwords ebook The Little Red Book: Of Little-Read Jokes about the Enlightened Left, which I can also highly recommend as I did the highly acclaiming part, too.

Leftest Violence Still As Harmless As Ever

February 10, 2016 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Ah Berlin. I love the smell of barbecue ignition chemicals in the morning.

Car

In the past seven days, the extremists proved true to their claim, starting what could be the most destructive single anti-gentrification action any city in Europe has yet seen. On Saturday, a gang of 40 masked vandals smashed up 28 cars in the area near central Potsdamer Platz, leaving some of them in flames. Attacks continued the following night in the southwestern district of Neukolln, when at least 20 more cars were damaged and shop windows smashed in.

But don’t worry, folks. The Deutsche Welle reassures us that in the wake of two spates of property damage by extremists in Berlin, some news outlets and politicians have warned of a rise in “leftist violence.” But the long-term stats do not bear this out.

Well if it’s only a protest against gentrification, then alles klar (say no more). Why didn’t you say so in the first place? We thought it had something to do with property rights, respect for the law and senseless violence and vandalism again.

The vandals’ weapon of choice is a disposable tinfoil barbecue set of a sort that many German stores sell for use as summer grills in the park.

Now We’re Back To Traditional German Numbers Again

February 5, 2016 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Germans don’t generally like any of this namby-pampy, 50/50 stuff when it comes to opinion poll percentage results. Not like the way we often have them in US-Amerika, for instance.

Merkel

Germans like something they call Klarheit (clarity). They always want to know wie der Hase läuft (how the rabbit is running or which way the wind is blowing). Most Germans (80%+?) are still infatuated with our El Presidente, for instance. To this very day. 80%+ would also support the promise of free beer, which pretty much comes down to the same thing, come to think of it (there is no such thing as free beer and El Presidente never happened either, of course).

So it did my heart good to see that  the number is also back up over the 80% mark (and climbing) when it comes to how they feel about their own El Presidente, only she’s a Chancellorente, and a girl: 81% of Germans say Merkel has made a mess of the migrant situation as her popularity hits five-year low.

This is a good thing, I find. If only for the Klarheit. And the rabbit on the run.

„Dann ist das nicht mehr mein Land“, hat Angela Merkel gesagt, als man ihr vorwarf, die Flüchtlinge in Deutschland allzu freundlich zu empfangen. Jetzt scheint der Gedanke wahr geworden zu sein.

German Of The Day: Checken

February 4, 2016 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

You know, like Checkpoint Charlie checken?

Checkpoint Charlie

Checken means “to get it” in German. To get it as in, I dunno. How about to get it as in finally-now-at last understanding that terrorists really and truly have infiltrated your country as refugees? Are we having denial yet (or still)? Denial will get you nowhere, fast.

German police Thursday arrested two Algerians suspected of links to the Islamic State group after raids targeting several sites, including refugee shelters where some of the suspects lived…

According to information acquired by the Tagesspiegel in Berlin, the former Checkpoint Charlie had been selected as the target of the attack. “As a tourist destination, Checkpoint Charlie was to be hit,” security authorities said.

Nach Informationen des in Berlin erscheinenden “Tagesspiegels” galt der frühere Checkpoint Charlie als Anschlagsziel. “Es sollte mit dem Checkpoint Charlie ein Tourismusziel getroffen werden”, hieß es in Sicherheitskreisen.