Big Obama Brother Says Chill Already

June 7, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Media, National Security, NSA, Obama, PRISM, Security, Surveillance, Terrorism 4 Comments

What’s all the excitement about with these NSA surveillance programs, Germany?

Your, I mean our president himself has ensured everyone everywhere that he has not become a Big Brother with eyes and ears throughout the world of online communications.

“You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” the Pres says. And that applies to you too, Germany. This is only for your own good, or something.

So take a chill pill already. If Obama is behind all of this then everything is fine, right? After all, you voted for him.

Es ist kein Geheimnis, dass die USA weltweit Kommunikation überwachen. Die Programme haben immer neue Namen, ob sie nun Echelon, Total Awareness oder TrailBlazer heißen. Aber ihr Ziel ist immer das gleiche: So viel wie möglich davon mitzubekommen, was Menschen miteinander reden. Nun ist es also Prism.

You Can’t Even Count On German Hypochondria Anymore

November 22, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Angst, Debt Crisis, Disease Mongering, Europe, European Debt Crisis, Fear, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Journalism, Media, Psychology, Satire Leave a comment

One can only muster up just so much angst, I guess. Even if you’re a German. There’s just never going to be enough of it to go around to make everybody happy. I mean unhappy.

That’s right. Current German Angstzustände (states of anxiety) just ain’t what they used to be. German angst being the complex, ever-changing and unstable condition that it is, a new Forsa study has indicated that, for the moment at least, Germans are actually more frightened of the ongoing European debt crisis than they are of the worries they make about their own health, or lack of it.

How it could come to this unexpected result is very puzzling for many, myself included, but one researcher has come up with a startling new theory that might explain this sudden and eerie angst turnaround. He believes that the permanent media reports about sicknesses and health risks stir up people’s worries and fears (duh), but with all the media attention being focused on the debt crisis these days, common disease mongering has simply been coming up too short on the angst Skala (scale).

Boy I sure hope that they finally get this Eurpean debt crisis crap over with soon so we can get back to business.

“Es scheint, als ob permanente Medienberichte über Krankheiten und Gesundheitsrisiken auch die Ängste der Menschen schüren.”

The German Sommerloch

July 10, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hustle (Hoax), Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Fake News, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Media, News, News Reporting, Newspapers, Satire, Slow News Season 3 Comments

It’s here (the German “summer hole“). So get used to it. And remember: If it wasn’t for slow news (see yesterday’s post), we wouldn’t have no news at all.

Or as one paper here put it: “Exotic Animals in a Summer Loch Ness.”

Hey, news is a product, folks. And production is down.

In the United States the period is referred to prosaically as the slow news season.

It’s OK That Obama Got Caught Saying That

March 27, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Bloopers, Blunders, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Journalism, Media, Medwedew, Microphones, Obama, Politicians, Putin, Satire, South Korea Leave a comment

Der Spiegel rushes to tell us.

Because other politicians have been caught on mic saying bad things, too.

Only they were bad. So there.

“Nach meiner Wahl habe ich mehr Flexibilität.”

Our Holy Hymnal Election Video, Amen

March 16, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Hi-tech, High Art, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Big Money, German, Germans, Germany, Hollywood, Humor, Media, Obama, Power, Presidential Election, Propaganda, Satire, The President 1 Comment

Wow. If anyone appreciates good propaganda, it’s these guys. The Der Spiegel clearly, if not accidently, got this one right: Obama, Amerikas Supermann.

“Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim directed it, Oscar winner Tom Hanks narrated it: Barack Obama’s election strategists have released a 17 minute promotional film. It stylizes the US President as a lonely hero who has single-handedly led his country out of crisis.”

Coming soon to a living room near you.

“Dieses Video ist für die Fans, und ihr wisst, wer sich angesprochen fühlen sollte.”

German Sensitivity All Sensitive Again

May 3, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Media, Osama bin Laden, Terrorism 8 Comments

And this time it has to do with the killing of a mass murderer (an interesting editorial piece, I’m paraphrasing most of this).

Damned if you do, I always say. For years Germans sardonically reproached George W. Bush for not being able to capture the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. Now that Osama bin Laden has been located and killed during an attempt to capture him, that was wrong too.

Here are just a few popular and very predictable politically correct party line reactions to the killing as presented by the German state media:

“Bin Laden was simply bumped off.”

“What kind of a country is this that could cheer at such an execution?”

“He was a 54-year-old father of a family.”

“German law professors go on record as saying that the US commando action violated international law.”

And of course the admonition cannot lack that “Obama only did this to get re-elected.” Other possible reasons for the killing of the man who was responsible for the most terrible attacks upon the United States since Pearl Harbor are apparently not imaginable for those in charge at German state television (WDR, Jörg Schönenborn).

More to follow here very soon I’m sure.

Und warum nur fällt es in diesem Land so schwer, eine sehr einfache Erkenntnis zu formulieren: Diese Welt ist ohne den Massenmörder aus Saudi-Arabien eine bessere. Darauf wird man sich doch wenigstens einigen können.

How do you keep the hysteria going?

April 4, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Media, Nuclear power, Panic, Satire 3 Comments

It’s clearly getting tougher and tougher with each passing day. When you’re well into your third week of daily reports about the Fukushima SUPER-GAU (disaster beyond all expectations) and that nuclear worst case scenario just simply won’t happen, even the most loyal alarmist starts getting a little pooped out. The Spannung (tension) just won’t steigen (mount) anymore.

I mean, we’ve already had the German atomic turnaround and the German Green triumph and the old German nuclear reactors are already shut off (and won’t be turned back on again) and the entire German nuclear power industry will be shut down next before all too long too so like what’s left to get excited about? Nothing? But what’s that got to do with anything? There was nothing to get excited about in the first place.

Poor devils, they’re scrambling and hustling as best they can but the pickings are awfully slim. They’re trying it today with 2285 missing fuel element ball thingies at a German nuclear research center. Talk about boring.

Like I said, slim pickin’s. But hey, it’s a Monday. See what they throw at us tomorrow.

Es klingt wie ein verspäteter Aprilscherz: Das Forschungszentrum Jülich vermisst 2285 Brennelementekugeln.

PS: Thanks for the link, A.K. – Diese kollektive Besoffenheit über Fukushima, diese unglaubliche Dummheit, dieses Ausrasten eines ganzen Volks haben mich eines Besseren belehrt.

Heine, der Emigrant in seiner Matratzengruft, hat alles richtig gesehen.

http://zettelsraum.blogspot.com/2011/04/biografien-ein-deutscher-dialog-zettel_03.html

“The United States of Hate”

January 10, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Hate, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Giffords, Media 10 Comments

This is the seventh article like this I’ve seen just today. I guess they’re going to be milking this one for the next week or two at least.

“In the crosshairs of hate,” “rightwing preachers of hate,” “Sarah Palin in particular has been taking aim at her,” blah, blah, blah.

I find this obsessive need to politicize a tragedy like this beneath contempt.

This is all too Kindergarten for me, in other words–only kids in kindergarden behave better. I’m taking a few days off.

“Hier tobt der hysterische Kampf zwischen Rechts und Links besonders heftig.”

Sarah Palin?

January 9, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hate Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Gifford, Media 1 Comment

It didn’t take long for Der Speigel & Co. to determine who the real culprit behind the senseless shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Gifford is (resulting in six deaths and nineteen injuries): Sarah Palin.

It doesn’t seem to be of any importance that the suspected shooter prepared Internet videos filled with rambling statements on topics like mind control or that his classmates wondered if he might not be on hallucinogens or that “as I knew him, he was left wing, quite liberal and oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy” or that all of this is “consistent with the delusions produced by a psychotic illness like schizophrenia.”

The real telling stuff that hard-hitting investigative reporters have dug up here is that Sarah Palin has criticized Gifford’s politics in the past and even went as far as to place a map on her “Political Action Committee” website page in which voting districts that had supported Obama’s health reform were marked with “crosshairs.”

How sinister, or something. And how much more ridiculous can you get than that?

“It almost seemed like he was on his own planet, because his comments would have nothing to do with what we were talking about.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Media