Tag Archives: Satire

Ich wulffe, du wulffst, er/sie/es wulfft…

January 12, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Humor, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Not that anybody out there knows who the German President is or could really care less if they did, but a new German verb has just entered the language (in his honor?) referring to, well, referring to what, anyway?

The new German verb refers to the manner in which scandal-plagued President Christian Wulff has sought to manage revelations that he accepted a favourable home loan from a businessman, holidayed at the villas of the wealthy and left a threatening message for the editor of Bild newspaper.

It’s called wulffen and actually has two meanings (at least two), according to the director of the German Language Association in Dortmund. The first is to talk on and on unprompted. The second means to be evasive about a particular issue without actually telling a lie.

Damn. I really had no idea that politicians the world over have actually been wulffen with me the whole time.

“It means something in-between.”

There Does Bear A Certain Resemblance

January 11, 2012 By in Hate, Higher Education, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

I always knew that I never liked George Clooney and I thought I knew why (he makes such lousy movies), but this latest comment of his has made me reevaluate my opinion.

He announced that he would like to play the role of Angela Merkel, if anybody would ever offer it to him, because “I‘ve always wanted to be like a small German woman.”

No, I don’t know what that was supposed to mean, either.

And no, it’s not just his films anymore, nor his boring pacifism and human rights concerns or his inane and poorly acted political morality made in Hollywood that gets my goat this time, it’s the fact that he clearly wants to dress up like a woman (albeit as one who wears pant suits all the time) and just doesn’t have the guts to do so.

And here I thought the guy prided himself in having a little integrity. Puh-shaw.

“Fast jeder hat doch mal einen Joint oder eine Wasserpfeife geraucht.”

Europeans Hurting Republican Feelings Again

January 10, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

The title reads: Greeks and Italians Work Harder Than Americans.

One common reaction to the European debt crisis has been to blame the victim: If only those Greeks/Italians would work harder, like us Americans/Germans, then they wouldn’t be in this pickle, the thinking goes.

Except it’s not, how do you say, true: Greeks and Italians actually work more than Americans and Germans.

Republicans Hurting European Feelings Again

January 9, 2012 By in Habitudes, Helections, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

And when they’re not doing that they’re hurting each other’s feelings – by calling each another too European. Yikes. Talk about hitting below the belt (but somebody’s got to do it).

It’s a scandal or something. And I’m shocked, I guess (I really thought they would have more powerful stuff than this). But some of these are pretty good, actually:

“Obama wants to turn the US into a European welfare state.”

“I don’t believe in Europe. I believe in America.”

“I don’t think Europe is working in Europe. I know it won’t work here.”

“You want to see America after the Obama administration is through, just read up on Greece.”

“Obama has a European social democratic vision.”

“American elites are guided by their desire to emulate the European elites. As a result, anti-religious values and principles are coming to dominate the academic, news media and judicial class in America.”

“The president said he wants to fundamentally transform America. I kind of like America. I’m not looking for it to be fundamentally transformed into something else. I don’t want it to become like Europe.”

Recently, RC Hammond, the spokesman for Newt Gingrich’s campaign, commented on Mitt Romney’s alleged support for a value added tax. “The fact that he’s willing to look at European Socialism shows just how far out of the conservative mainstream he is.”

As The Energy Turnaround Turns

January 8, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Now that the German Energiewende (energy turnaround) is here, tens of thousands of new green jobs have been created. Well, not quite yet actually. But it won’t be long now.


 
After all, once Berlin decided to permanently switch off the country’s eight oldest nuclear reactors and close the remaining ones still online by 2022, everyone here was absolutely ecstatic (at least those who didn’t work in the energy sector were). Sometimes you just have to give the people what they want, you know? And now they’ve got it. What they wanted, I mean

The same day the Energiewende was announced saw the first case in Germany of a solar panel manufacturer (Solon) announcing it was going into liquidation, threatening the loss of some 500 jobs. Then you had EON, Germany’s biggest power supplier, deciding to cut up to 11,000 jobs worldwide while its rival RWE shed 8,000. Then you had Solar Millennium. Then you had, oh I forget which one (there have been so many recently), solar something or something.

Hey, what’s a little job loss when it comes to the common green good (rhymes with Robin Hood)? These jobs are coming, people, sooner or later or maybe not even at all because, well, not even green jobs grow on trees.

Optimistic predictions that Germany’s decision to turn its back on nuclear energy will lead to the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the renewable energy sector have met with scepticism.

Why Stop At Three Knut Memorials In Berlin?

January 6, 2012 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Why not 40 instead?

It could have been a lot worse, though, believe it or not. This Knutmania stuff, I mean. Just imagine if he would have drowned in the Arctic instead?

Knut arrived on the scene at a moment when global warming was a growing topic, born the same year that the climate-change film “An Inconvenient Truth,” starring Al Gore, was released… Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” claim that polar bears were drowning in the Arctic because of melting ice packs has since been discredited.

Bis zum Ende der Ausschreibung in dieser Woche seien 40 Ideen, Skizzen Bilder und Modelle beim Verein der Freunde des Berliner Zoos eingegangen.

We’ll Import Power From Anywhere

January 5, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Even from Austria, if need be. And need there be.

“Missing power lines” are the cause behind the missing energy being missed in Southern Germany these days, we are told. That’s why Austria is being asked to help big buddy Germany out with a little “emergency energy,” pretty please.

But Austrians do this gladly, I think, because they know that if those missing German power lines weren’t missing than those missing power lines would be transporting tons of wonderful wind energy from the high German north to those energy-hungry factories in the south (and beyond to Austria?) where it’s missing at the moment, the energy. Like I said. Or so the theory.

The missing German nuclear power plants that were shut off after Fukushima (that’s in Japan) aren’t being missed by anybody here, though. Forget about them. It’s not the missing German nuclear power plants. It’s the missing power lines that are missing, I mean messing everything up around here.

Die Bundesnetzagentur hatte vor langfristigen Engpässen bei der Stromversorgung gewarnt. Die Versorgungssicherheit bleibe durch den Atomausstieg für eine Reihe von Jahren angespannt.

Politically Incorrect Incorrectness (Correctness?)

January 4, 2012 By in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness, Higher Education, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

As you may be aware of, if you take a critical stance toward Islam in and/or the Islamification of Germany, you are a very way bad person indeed and may even be what some here would call an intolerant and politically incorrect dirt ball.

But if you call yourself Politically Incorrect (PI) to begin with and make a big deal about thinking that way REAL LOUD then you’ve been outed for good and will eventually end up with the German Verfassungsschutz (Office for Constitutional Protection) on your tail.

That’s happening now, for no particular reason as far as I can see, other than the folks at the Verfassungsschutz suddenly have the need to think that the free-speaking Politically Correct just developed a dangerous and “disturbed relationship with the constitutional state.” That certainly took them awhile. PI has been around for years and hasn’t pulled any punches yet. Hmmm, and here I thought that free speech was as constitutional as apple PI, I mean pie, I mean Apfelkuchen.

Es gebe Anhaltspunkte dafür, dass etwa die Betreiber antimuslimischer Internetseiten “ein gestörtes Verhältnis zum demokratischen Rechtsstaat” hätten.

And The Downbeat Goes On

January 1, 2012 By in Heconomy Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Yeah, Angie Merkel has a New Year’s hangover, too.

The German chancellor warns us, I mean you, that the year ahead will “undoubtedly” be harder than 2011.

Yeah, prost Neujahr to you, too, lady.

Some 22 percent of the (German poll) respondents expect the region to abandon the euro and return to national currencies while 90 percent said in response to a separate question that other euro member states would join Greece, Portugal and Ireland in needing aid.