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.

Germany Not Considering Military Options Again

May 30, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Humor, Hypocrisy Tags: Assad, Berlin, France, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Military Intervention, Pacifism, Satire, Syria, Weapon exports, Weapons 3 Comments

Just in case you were wondering, I mean (this time they’re not considering them for Syria).

Not like anybody would ever expect them to consider otherwise. I mean, is the Pope a Catholic? Do chickens use fowl language? Do vacuum cleaners suck?

Germans never consider military options, even when they maybe ought to. Unless it’s an Angriffskrieg (war of aggression), I mean. And that’s been a while. It’s just what they (don’t) do. They don’t use weapons, people. They just, you know, sell them.

“We want to avoid a wildfire in the region.”

All Good Things Must End

May 28, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hi-tech, High Art, Humor Tags: Bearpit, Berlin, Entertainment, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Karaoke, Mauerpark, Mauerpark Karaoke, Music, Satire Leave a comment

All awful things must end, too.

Berlin’s ‘bearpit karaoke‘ under threat – Mauerpark phenomenon at risk as council increases permit fees and restricts dates

If It Wasn’t For Schadenfreude I Wouldn’t Have No Freude At All

May 25, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Attitude, Bad Attitude, German, Germans, Germany, Grumpiness, Happiness, Humor, Joy, Negativity, Psychology, Relaxation, Satire, Surveys 4 Comments

This just in: The German joy gene is broken. Holy freakin’ Makrele (mackerel)! Who would have ever thought that?

But here we have it. The latest German joy gene task force survey says: 46 percent of Germans reveal that they are increasingly unable to enjoy anything, 55 percent of younger Germans even claim to feel they have lost their ability to feel good at all and 81 percent of those surveyed said that the only time they experience pleasure is when they have managed to “achieve something” first. You know, like when “a motorcyclist reported experiencing delight when he blew exhaust fumes in the direction of a convertible driver as he accelerated at a green light.”

Wow. I would have never thought that Germans were self-denying overachievers completely incapable of enjoying themselves (unless it’s schadenfreude) and weighed down by their penchant for perfectionism and their inability to relax, you?

Meanwhile, chances to create a sense of well-being lurk everywhere — a glass of wine, a relaxing bubble bath, or a nice restaurant with delicious food. These, of all things, also rankle the Germans. “This glut of offerings pressures people into thinking, ‘I must enjoy everything’.”

It’s Good To Be The German

May 24, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Banking, Banks, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Investments, Money, Private Capital, Private Investment, Satire, Savings, The Euro 1 Comment

In case you didn’t know it, Germans are sitting on a big honking tremendous pile of money.

The Bundesbank thinks that German private households are in posession of ein paar tausend Milliarden or “a few thousand billion” euros (stick with that, believe me: Billion is Milliarde in German, trillion is Billion). They’ve got more set aside now then ever before, in other words; some 4.7 trillion euros.

And the punch line is that they seem to have invested most of it at those awful horrible dreadful banks they like to despise so much (they make big banks even bigger, you might say). Investments in real estate haven’t even been calculated here, by the way. Rereading this is starting to make my stomach hurt.

Privatleute vertrauen Vermögen den Banken an.

Energy Revolution Not Taking Place Quite Yet

May 23, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Humor, Ideology, Nuclear energy, Renewable energy, Satire, Solar energy, Technology, The Green Shirts 2 Comments

German energy turnaround revolutionaries everywhere are turning around more than usual these days, burning more energy than planned trying to answer all the dumb questions those dumb energy reactionaries are always asking them.

Dumb questions like:
How come the energy turnaround isn’t making any progress?
How come the taxpayers continue to foot the bill?
How come all these renewable energy companies are going broke now that the subsidies are being cut?
How come made in Germany renewable energy technology is now being made in China these days (and German subsidies are actually helping the Chinese)?
How come Germany isn’t in the position to create the power-transmission lines needed to connect these new energy sources to the German power grid?
How come the energy-storage facilities needed for these new technologies are so extremely expensive and, well, just aren’t being built?
How was that again? How come Germany is in the process of turning off all its nuclear power plants?
How come the construction of dozens of new coal-burning power plants will therefore be necessary?

And how could ideology get the upper hand on reality (yet again) in a nation full of such sober, experienced thinkers?

And on and on and on these dumb questioners go. These reactionary types just don’t get it, you see. They don’t have visions like us revolutionary folks do. And they don’t hear the voices, either.

Germany Stalled on the Expressway to a Green Future

Happy Christi Himmelfahrtskommandotag!

May 17, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Alcohol, Ascension, Beer, Berlin, Bollerwagen, Christi Himmelfahrt, Drunkenness, German, Germans, Germany, Holidays, Humor, Satire, Tradition, Vatertag 2 Comments

Vatertag is also Ascension here (or the other way around), and a real holiday. And a real boon to the German liquor industry, too.

And there really is some connection between the two holidays here somewhere, I think. Jesus is known to have drunk wine and wander around the countryside with his buddies, for instance. Although without the Bollerwagen (handcarts), of course. Nor did they ever drink and drive, as far as I know.

Not so here in Germany, however. Bild tells us that there will be three times as many alcohol-related accidents today as usual. And I believe it, too. Just ask these guys down here.

Herrentag ist Unfalltag!

PS: Christi Himmelfahrt is the Ascension. A Himmelfahrtskommando is a kamikaze operation.

A Blaze Of Glory

May 16, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Hate, Helplessness, High Art, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Football, Fortuna Düsseldorf, German, Germans, Germany, Herthat BSC, Humor, Satire, Soccer, Sports Leave a comment

Looks like you’re toast now, Hertha BSC.

Your relegation playoff defeat at Fortuna Düsseldorf took you out of the big league, yet again.

Although the match go so ugly at times…

That Hertha is now appealing against the result and is requesting a replay, which may or may not be granted.

But if they do get the replay, at least they’ll get the chance to lose fair and square on their own, without any of that pesky soccer fan interference stuff.

“It is written in the rules: if there is an outside influence, which has nothing to do with the game, then the match must be replayed.”

Now That’s What I Call Starting Off With A Bang

May 15, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, France, German, Germans, Germany, Hollande, Humor, Lightning, Merkel, Sarkozy, Satire, The French President 2 Comments

A presidential jet carrying newly inaugurated French President Francois Hollande was hit by lightning en route to Berlin and forced to turn back to Paris, but the Socialist was unharmed and took off again in another plane, a presidential source said.

Damn. This Hollande guy is definitely more flashy than his predecessor Sarkozy was. When it comes to lightning, I mean.

Blitzschlag hin oder her. Angela Merkel empfing den französischen Präsidenten im Kanzleramt per Handschlag.

PS: Is there a metaphor here or something?

Germans Now Lecturing Americans About Religion

May 11, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hate, Health, Heconomy, Helections, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: America, Berlin, Der Spiegel, German, Germans, Germany, Healthcare, Humor, Mandatory Healthcare, Medicine, Obama, Obamacare, Satire, Socialized Medicine, USA 11 Comments

Or at least I think that’s what they’re doing here. Or maybe they’re just lecturing us about mandatory healthcare insurance, which clearly seems to have some religious significance in Germany.

I mean, we all know how Germans are famous for being so religious and all, but I had no idea that they had begun spreading their evangelical zeal to Obamacare, of all things. But spread they have and we should take their prosthelising in earnest (they certainly do).

Why just take a look at some of the deeper observations to be found within this religious tract, I mean Spiegel article:

In Germany, people are baffled by how hostile a country as religious as the United States can be to the principle of mandatory healthcare insurance.

The US comes across to not only Germans, but to many Europeans, as a religious country. Don’t religious Americans love their neighbors?

“For me the US is a very religious country. It doesn’t matter which religion I look at — love thy neighbor is a very, very important point in religion.”

For her, the apparent deep religiousness of many Americans doesn’t jibe with their unwillingness to be part of a healthcare community.

Well there we have it. Sin and transgression everywhere you look. The devil has entered our US-Amerikan house and will divide and fall it. All because, well, I’m not really sure why. But I think it might be because we as Americans don’t worship mandatory healthcare insurance like other folks do. Amen.

Thanks, Germany. We’ll come to see the light yet. You just wait and see.

Germans Can’t Fathom US Aversion to Obama’s Healthcare Reform

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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