Tag Archives: Satire

Number one again!

January 20, 2010 By in Hard Facts Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Germany may not be the export champion of the world anymore, but Germans are definitely world champions when it comes to doctor visits per year.

The average German, whoever he is, goes to see his doctor an amazing 18 times per year. A third of those who come in are chronically ill too, or at least think that they are. And the only other nation on earth that comes even close to German sickliness is Japan with thirteen visits a year. No, not for the whole nation, I meant for the average Japanese sick dude.

Makes you wonder. About hypochondria, for instance. And health care systems that somehow encourage this type of thing, for another, Praxisgebühr or not. This German “practice fee” (10 Euros per quarter the visitor has to pay when he/she goes to the doctor’s office) was introduced a few years back in the hope of slowing this madness down, but it obviously hasn’t helped. Being sick is still dirt cheap here, I guess.

Help me man, the German health care system said, I’m sick.

In keinem Land der Welt gehen die Menschen so oft zum Arzt wie in Deutschland.

Who remembers the Uncola?

January 19, 2010 By in Habitudes Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Well the Germans have an Unword, so there. Only they call it Unwort. And this year’s winner (they really mean loser) is Betriebsrastverseucht (works council (think unions)  contaminated).

How shocking or something. This is a real “sprachlicher Tiefpunkt” (linguistic low point), man. Talk about being politically incorrect. Who could ever get the idea that works councils in Germany could ever possibly contaminate anything? Whether they wanted to or not, I mean. Other than the general mood, I mean, which is always pretty lousy here to begin with anyway so like who cares? Just stop and think about it: If there weren’t any work councils here, uh, there wouldn’t be any works councils here. And that would lead to, uh, well, further or even real contamination. The whole nation would become contaminated, so-to-speak. You know, a contamination.

So clean up your act and stop using awful Unwords like that. These are not cola nuts. They`re the other kind.

Die Wahrnehmung von Arbeitnehmerinteressen als Seuche zu bezeichnen, sei ein sprachlicher Tiefpunkt im Umgang mit Lohnabhängigen.

Berlin comes in first place again!

January 18, 2010 By in Hard Facts Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

When it comes to having the most folks on welfare (Hartz IV) in Germany, that is. Which puts them in last place amoung the other German states, I guess. But still.

Nearly 200 out of 1000 Berliners receive payments from the state to get by, more or less. And it’s lonely up here at the top too, I mean bottom. But somebody’s got to do it. I mean be here.

Knapp 20 Prozent der Berlinerinnen und Berliner seien auf staatliche Unterstützung angewiesen, schreiben die Autoren der Studie „Die Bundesländer im Standortwettbewerb 2010“

Technophobia time again

January 17, 2010 By in Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

According to an OECD study, German schools are way behind when it comes to offering their students modern digital technology/media.

That’s not all that surprising though, really. All this high-tech stuff is kind of spooky and dangerous over here for some reason. Google is pure evil these days, for instance. And we don’t even want to talk about Microsoft.

Actually, we do. The German Federal Office for Information Security  just warned against using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. It’s too vulnerable or something. It is the weak link in recent attacks on Google’s systems. But wait, wouldn’t that a good thing then? Whatever.

„Obwohl Deutschland eine der stärksten Wirtschaftsnationen ist, sind wir, wenn es um digitale Medien in der Schule geht, Letzter im OECD-Vergleich.”

Pull your weight already

January 15, 2010 By in Habitudes Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Or lose whatever weight you may have had, I mean.

Warning: The following is somebody else`s opinion, somebody you will most likely not agree with (oder doch?). Worse still, it`s been taken from a so-called “blog”.

“The heaviest burden in Afghanistan has been borne by the US, UK and Canada. Of the older NATO nations Denmark has played a major role, contributing more troops and taking more casualties as a part of its population than any other continental European nation. However, other Western nations have not pulled their weight at all, with Germany now acting as the problem child of the Western Alliance.

Germany, with the fourth largest economy in the world and a much larger population than the UK, had less than half of the force strength in Afghanistan as the UK. While British forces are committed to the toughest part of the country, the south, and are there to fight, the Germans have stationed their force in the safest part of Afghanistan, the north, and have and surrounded their commitment with numerous caveats restricting when and how their forces might engage in combat.”

“One of the major consequences of the ongoing war in Afghanistan is a very changed understanding of NATO and the dynamics of the alliance.”

Musical Schmoozical

January 14, 2010 By in Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

You’ve read all the books, seen all the TV reports and shows, even followed the Nobel Peace Prize awards. But if you haven’t dropped from adoration exhaustion yet, you still have this one last chance to do so. Although, well, actually we all know that this won’t really be your last chance. That was just a figure of speech or something.

Anyways… A German musical is set to pay tribute to you-know-who in an all-singing, all-dancing Obama musical (Obamusical?) extravaganza. It will soon premiere in Frankfurt and no force in the universe can stop it.

I think I’ll wait for the movie to come out. No, now I think I won’t. But maybe I will check out the DVD one day… In a galaxy far, far away.

But despite complaints on the Internet that this is yet another a rose-tinted portrayal of the president, event organizers stressed that Obama is not being idealized…

Fly me to Iraq already

January 13, 2010 By in Heconomy Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Looks like Germans are finally going to participate in Iraq after all. Or at least Germany’s Lufthansa is going to. They may not have had any choice, however.

No, I don’t mean that they’re going there to do any heavy lifting or shoot ’em up or anything like that (how could I?). Lufthansa had 2.6% fewer passengers last year and they`re in desperate need of new ones and/or markets and, well, now that Iraq is finally opening up for the rest of us…

It’s time to act or something. So, German Abenteuerurlauber (adventure vacationers), book your flight to Bagdad or Erbil now. Or next year, maybe. Or maybe not at all.

Das Flugangebot wurde 2009 um 1,3 Prozent reduziert.

Go west, German autombile companies!

January 12, 2010 By in Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Mit einem blauen Auge davongekommen (getting out of the econmic crisis with just a black eye), German automobile locust types now have their other eye clearly focused on US-Amerika and plan to produce even more of their fancy schmancy Germerican cars there.

Actually, they’ve been doing this quite some time already and doing it quite well, thank you. They’ve continually increased their share of the American Automobile Market Pie these past five years and now enjoy a healthy 7.3 percent piece of it. And believe it or not, the American auto market is still the biggest in the world, although I wouldn’t know why. Or you wouldn’t think so these days, I mean.

Or could it be that German auto makers just want to get the hell out of Germany because, I dunno, German workers are too expensive? Nah.

Die deutsche Autoindustrie sieht sich in den USA als Krisengewinner.

More bad snow behavior

January 11, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Or lack of it, I should say. The behavior, I mean. As reported earlier, snow punks recently took over the streets of Leipzig, kind of.

Now Jugendliche (have you ever noticed that it’s like always “young people”?) in Nürnberg are throwing snowballs from bridges at the passing cars below! How shocking or something. One of these snowballs even busted a windshield. Is nothing sacred anymore?

I think we’re dealing with manifestations of high sea fatigue here, only it’s more like high snow fatigue, if you stop and think about it. All this snow is slowly driving everybody here crazy.

Die Täter konnten zunächst von der Fußgängerbrücke im Nürnberger Stadtteil Langwasser entkommen.

Global Warming called off in Germany

January 10, 2010 By in Hard Facts Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

I mean at least for a few weeks, people. Don’t worry. Like Arnold, it’ll be back (most likely with a vengeance too, right?).

But damn it sure is cold here in Berlin these days.

It’s cold I tell you. Why it’s so cold that pickpockets in the U-Bahn here are sticking their hands in strangers’ pockets just to keep them warm.

Cold? Why it’s so cold here that people who normally hate McDonald’s actually go there in the hope that somebody will finally spill scalding hot coffee on their lap.

You want cold? Why it’s so cold in Berlin that German car cleaning fetishists have actually stopped cleaning their cars. They just defrost them all day now instead.
 
Global Warming bis zum Umfallen.