Is Possession Really Nine-Tenths Of The Law?

October 24, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Banking, Banks, Berlin, Bundesbank, Central Banks, Cold War, German, Germans, Germany, Gold, Gold Reserves, Humor, Paranoia, Satire 1 Comment

Strange. Stored abroad since the Cold War in case of a Soviet invasion, nearly half of Germany’s gold reserves are stored in the United States.

Stranger still: The Bundesbank or other independent auditors have never actually physically checked the gold’s authenticity or weight but have relied on “written confirmations by the storage sites” instead.

Now folks are starting to, you know, wonder (paranoia runs deep)? Hey, central banking at its best is all I can say. It’s not that we don’t trust you, it’s just that we don’t trust you.

“Ein Teil der Diskussion in Deutschland ist schon einigermaßen grotesk.”

Internet Making Germans Dumber

September 21, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Digital Media, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Intelligence, IQ, Paranoia, Psychology, Research, Satire, Studies, The Internet 1 Comment

It’s called “Digitale Demenz” (Digital Dementia) or something.

“Avoid digital media,” one smart German is warning his countrymen. “As shown here many times over, they truly do make us fat, dumb, aggressive, lonely, sick and unhappy.”

Nice try, buddy. But what you’ve failed to consider here (being a German yourelf), is that Germans don’t need any help from anybody or anything at any time when it comes to being aggressive, lonely, sick and unhappy. They’re naturals at it. As for the Internet making them fat and dumb, well, OK. If you say so.

The strange thing though is that everywhere else on Planet Earth it appears as if the Internet is actually making us smarter. Whatever. I guess maybe that’s how it is with Deutsche Sonderwege (German separate paths), it’s the exception that always proves the rule.

Such findings refute the claims of those who warn that humanity is getting dumber. We’re “amusing ourselves to death,” American media theorist and critic Neil Postman argued in a 1985 book of the same name. Postman blamed television for a decline in cognitive skills. Since then, however, the average IQ in the US has risen by nearly 10 points.

Update: Search Broken Off For Crocodile That Isn’t There

July 11, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Bavaria, Crocodiles, Fear, German, Germans, Germany, Klausensee, Paranoia, Slow News Time, Sommerloch, The Silly Season Leave a comment

Wo ist das Krokodil?

Next Imaginary Crocodile Sighting Underway

July 9, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Alligators, Berlin, Crocodiles, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Monsters, Paranoia, Satire, Scary Animals, Wild Animal Sightings, Wild Animals Leave a comment

Germans are totally tierlieb (fond of animals). Especially when they are the exotic and preferably dangerous kind of Tier they regularly think they see but never manage to find lurking about in the German Wildnis (wilderness).

This time it’s another crocodile, somewhere near Regensburg (with an emphasis on the crock here, folks). A guy out on a walk and “a lady on an air mattress” both saw the horrible creature so we can be sure that this time the danger is clear and present.

These are obligatory annual sightings, by the way. I don’t know why that it, but you have to have at least one here every summer. It has to do with the infamous German Sommerloch (which is just about to start), I think, but that’s another story.

Die Polizei in Bayern hat mit Schlauchbooten, Tauchern und sogar einem Hubschrauber nach einem Krokodil in einem Badesee gesucht – bisher erfolglos.

Privacy Concern Has Its Price

May 31, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Data Privacy, Data Protection, Fines, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Legislation, Paranoia, Privacy, Satire, The EU, The EU-Zone Leave a comment

And in this case it will be about 300,000 euros per day.

European authorities have taken Germany to court for failing to implement the E.U. Data Retention Directive.

The European Commission announced on Thursday that it wants the European Court of Justice to impose a fine of just over €315,000 (US$391,866) a day.

The Data Retention Directive requires telephone companies and ISPs to store huge amounts of telecommunications information, including data about email, phone calls and text messages, for law enforcement purposes.

So much for Germany being the Musterschüler (model student) in all things EU. Germans don’t like this law because they live in a POLICE STATE or something (albeit one that’s all in their minds). It’s not that Germans don’t trust their fellow Germans or anything, you see, it’s just that they don’t trust their fellow Germans.

Hey, they should know. Where there’s smoke there’s fire and all that? I guess I’d pay up, too.

Weil Berlin geltendes EU-Gesetz über die Vorratsdatenspeicherung nicht in nationales Recht übertragen hat, hat die EU-Kommission Deutschland vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof verklagt.

Vorratsdatenspeicherung

April 27, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Data, Data Protection, Data Retention, Data Security, EU, Europe, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Paranoia, Satire Leave a comment

Is that a German word, or what?

And it looks like it’s a word that’s going to cost Germany millions in fines for not being willing to go along with the guidelines concerning it as determined by the EU.

I mean, we all know that Vorratsdatenspeicherung is a touchy subject and all. Some countries do their Vorratsdatenspeicherung this way, other countries do their Vorratsdatenspeicherung that way. But any way you cut the Vorratsdatenspeicherung cake, Vorratsdatenspeicherung is Vorratsdatenspeicherung and I, for one, find it irresponsible of Germany to just ignore the EU’s Vorratsdatenspeicherung guidelines like that, just because they’re Germany, I mean. All Europeans are in the same Vorratsdatenspeicherung boat, after all.

Who do they think they are, anyway?

You should be ashamed of yourself, Germany. Put that in your Vorratsdatenspeicherung pipe and smoke it.

“Was wir auf den ersten Blick sagen können ist, dass Deutschland anscheinend keinen Fortschritt bei der Umsetzung der EU-Richtlinie zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung gemacht hat und weiterhin EU-Recht verletzt.”

PS: Vorratsdatenspeicherung means data retention (the EU wants to retain data for six months, Germany doesn’t).

German Computer Clouds Don’t Stink

March 11, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, CeBIT, Cloud Computing, Data Protection, Data Security, Fear Mongering, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Marketing, Nationality, Paranoia, Satire, Technology 2 Comments

I mean float. At least not across the German border, they don’t.

Germans being pathalogically hypersensitive whenever it comes to data protection issues, whether they be actual issues or not, Deutsche Telekom has cleverly exploited these wildly popular fears during this year’s CeBIT technology fair by suggesting to “the 3.6 million prosperous German small and medium sized firms who have not yet taken the leap to storing their data using cloud computing” that their “German cloud” can offer them the safety and security that those leaky and toxic foreign clouds could never offer them – even if those foreign clouds wanted to offer them safety and security in the first place which, of course, they don’t.

Telekom’s cloud – some 30 datacenters spread across Germany – is, well, spread across Germany, so nothing can ever possibly go wrong, one Telekom spokesman tells us. “And we are not playing on peoples’ fears, either” another spokesman added. “It’s just that when servers are situated outside of Germany there is a risk that companies will use your data for commercial purposes or, worse, they will be spied on by the secret services.”

Let’s all sing together: Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it will creep. It starts when you’re always afraid. You step out of line, the man come and take you away…

This will be “a cloud computer model for the German market and in the German language.” Made for Germans. By Germans. In Germany.

It’s Us Against Them

December 2, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Facebook, Fear, German, Germans, Germany, Google, Humor, Internet, Paranoia, Satire, Schizophrenia, Technology 1 Comment

Us as in US, I mean.

German authorities are trying to limit what the American tech companies can do, but the Silicon Valley giants are fighting back (the key word is American here, folks).

Give the Germans what they want, I say. But what DO they want, anyway (this is one of my favorite German schizophrenia thangs).

It’s worth noting that Facebook and Google are actually quite popular in the country — the BBC reported in September that “a quarter of the German population are active Facebook users and Google has 95% of the country’s search market.”

Like Get Out Of My Gesicht Already

November 11, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Biometrics, Facebook, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Paranoia, Satire, Technology 5 Comments

Are we having another Street View yet? German faces on Facebook? Niemals (never)!

When it comes to Facebook’s biometric facial recognition technology “Tag Suggestions”, or just about any other kind of dad-gern-new-fangled sinister and EVIL US-Amerikanische Internet technology out there for that matter, Germans verstehen kein spaß (just can’t take a joke). And when you mix up a little “out of principle” in the fixins’, this latest tasty data protection Skandal is ready-to-serve.

To opt-in or opt-out, that is the question (German paranoiacs prefer the opt-in opt) and Hamburg’s data protection commissioner is now preparing legal action against Facebook and will soon fine the company over its use of said technology because, well, he can.

“Facebook has repeatedly come under fire in Germany, where privacy is a particularly sensitive issue for historical reasons.” Historical reasons? Nonsense. This is clearly a mental health issue.

“We believe that any legal action is completely unnecessary as the tag suggest feature on Facebook is fully compliant with EU data protection laws.”

Evil Internet Giant Now Within City Limits

October 26, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Godzilla, Google, Humor, Paranoia, Satire 1 Comment

Google Inc., that highly mistrusted and ruthlessly vilified corporate world dominator and spy on all things German (I got two words for you here: Street View), has just done an end-run around sleeping data privacy officers stationed at Berlin’s city gates and bought its way into Humboldt University itself by funding a new so-called Institute for Internet and Society, supposedly “based on a philosophy of openness and open access” which will “explore the impact of the digital age.”

Yeah, right. We all know what they’re really up to (or at least you do, I assume). Just don’t come crying to me later and say that I didn’t warn you. The next thing you now Googlezilla will be “approaching the power plant.”

Google Inc. has committed €4.5 million ($6.26 million) to the institute for the first three years as part of its recent push to invest in Germany, which has often been critical of the Internet giant’s practices.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Paranoia