And here we thought that Germans were good at math.
Until Fukushima, Japan satisfied about 30 percent of its electricity demands with nuclear power, while renewable energy made up about 10 percent of the power supply. If one leaves out hydroelectric power, renewables hardly make up more than 1 percent.
“Japan needs a vision.”
In a brilliant and risky move never yet attempted by a left-wing politician ever before, SPD boss Sigmar Gabriel has boldly proposed to improve his parties chances at next year’s federal election by “blaming the banks” for everything that has gone wrong in the financial sector and elsewhere.
“Mind-blowing,” one German political commentator said. “No one has been able to put these complex puzzle pieces together like this up until now. But by calling the banks extortionists, accomplices to tax evasion, hustlers and manipulators, Gabriel develops a subtle analysis of a highly complicated theme, thus making it easily accessible to the man on the street.”
“Die versammelte Linke in Deutschland betrügt sich selbst und betrügt die Bürger, wenn sie einerseits die Krise mit immer neuen Schulden bekämpfen will – und dadurch die Abhängigkeit von den Banken und Finanzinstituten erhöht, die man andererseits blindwütig an den Pranger stellt.”
“The entire left tricks itself and the citizens when, on the one hand, it calls to fight the crisis with ever more debt – thus making us even more dependent upon the banks and financial institutions – and then, on the other, mindlessly blaming them for everything.”
Wo sind sie geblieben?
Remember when an occupy camp used to be an occupy camp? When a man was a man and a woman was a woman and the occupy movement was a joke? Oh sure, it still is, but who cares anymore?
Now, at least for the occupy camp in front of the European Central Bank in Franfurt, “garbage, rats, social distress and addiction problems have pushed the captitalism protests into the background.”
We will yet overcome or something.
Müll und Ratten sowie soziale und Suchtprobleme haben den kapitalismuskritischen Protest längst in den Hintergrund gedrängt.
SPD Governor (Rhineland-Palatinate) Kurt Beck just can’t resign, Nürnburgring bankruptcy or not. This is because, well, “he’s been in office longer than any other German governor” out there. Or is that maybe part of the problem?
Nuerburgring GmbH, 90 percent owned by the state, ran into financial trouble amid a dispute with the track’s operator over leasing fees, and Rhineland-Palatinate has sought to restructure the company with the help of a bridge financing package.
„Jetzt wird es Zeit, dass MP Beck selbst politische Insolvenz anmeldet.“
The German jihad just ain’t what it used to be.
A lot like those disgruntled Auswanderer (emigrant) types on Goodby Deutschland who invariably tuck in their tails and head back home in disgrace, hundreds of aspiring Islamic terrorists from Germany (and their families) have had it up to here already in Waziristan and are heading back to Deutschland in frustration and disgust.
It turns out that their living conditions in the mountains were tougher and less romantic than those portrayed in the promotional clips and what with the disease and the hardship and death always raining down from the sky from American drones and dozens of German combatants already dead, hey, not even going back to live in Germany seemed all that bad a prospect anymore.
What do you think? Which one of these guys is going to turn out to be the next Daniela Katzenberger?
“The first time I heard about going to Pakistan, my eyes almost popped out of my head. I didn’t even know if you could get Pampers there.”
Cheap, in other words.
Germans everywhere are slowly waking up to the fact that their revolutionary switch to renewable energy sources is going to cost way too way much more than they ever thought they would ever have to pay – and the German government has now woken up to this.
That is why they have now begun a quiet backpedaling policy designed to prepare the German population for a slow turnaround from the energy turnaround that hasn’t even begun to turn around yet.
“For me it’s a priority that electricity remains affordable,” Germany’s new Environment Minister Peter Altmaier says, for instance.
He also says he doubts that Germany will be able to reach its goal of introducing one million electric cars by 2020.
Nor does he think that Germany will be able to cut its energy consumption by 10 percent that year, a precondition for reaching the illusory goal of 35 percent renewables the government is still aiming for, sort of.
This is the German Environment Minister talking here, folks. So you get the message, don’t you? And if you don’t get it now, you’ll get it later.
Regierung fürchtet die Strompreis-Wut der Wähler
Like wow. Who would have thought that?
Klausi the Krokodil turned out to be just another stupid beaver. The hysteria was wonderful while it lasted, though.
Das Phantom-Krokodil «Klausi» hatte die Stadt mehr als eine Woche lang in Atem gehalten. Die beiden Zeugen hatten angegeben, ein etwa ein Meter langes Tier mit langem Schwanz und Krallen gesehen zu haben.
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.
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.
Now if only it would stay there.
Damn. This is becoming quite a ritual (yawn). But this is just what folks at Berlin Fashion Week do, so deal with it. Thirty-four models, four hundred passengers and seventeen labels on one subway train, what’s that get you? An underground catwalk – for the seventh time now already. Sheesh.
“This year is all about kitschy kitsch.”
Observing Hermann 