Germany To Build Autobahn And Let Austria Pay For It

Outraged by years of illegal foreign automobile immigration into their country, irate German politicians have now announced the introduction of road tolls that purposely aim to discriminate against these foreign drivers. The money taken in here will then be used to build yet another autobahn to, uh, keep them out or something.

Foreigner

As one irate Berlin government spokesman noted: “We will build a great autobahn, and nobody builds autobahns better than us, believe me, and we’ll build it very inexpensively. We will build a great great autobahn on our southern border and we’ll have Austria pay for that autobahn.”

Furious and really, really pissed off, the Austrian prime minister has now cancelled a visit with chancellor Merkel planned for next week and Austrian companies have begun launching a series of boycotts of German companies.

Austrian Transport Minister Joerg Leichtfried on Wednesday said he was discussing with other countries whether to file a joint complaint against Germany’s proposed Autobahn toll, which he said violated the EU’s “principle of equal treatment”.

Der Aufstand gegen die Pkw-Maut beginnt

Who Am I? Where Am I? And Why Am I Reading This?

My fellow Americans: We have lost our identity. Again already, or something. Or at least that’s what I just read down here.

Amerika

But luckily for us, the folks over at Spiegel Online are going to give our identities back to us. Only this being Germany, and Germany being Germany, and what with Datenschutz (data protection) and all, we will have to properly identify ourselves first, of course (unless we’re Syrian refugees from North Africa, I mean, but we’re not, we’re Mericans). So… Wait a minute. How the hell is this supposed to work anyway?

Reporter Holger Stark spent the past four years as DER SPIEGEL’s Washington correspondent during a time in which the country changed radically enough to elect Donald Trump as its president. What led this once mighty nation into decline?

Megalomania & Small-Mindedness – How America Lost Its Identity

PS: Just read it, folks. They’re only trying to help us. This is NOT fake news, by the way, so don’t even THINK of looking for any alternative facts.

US-Amerika

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

SIG

Because somebody has to admire them.

German weapons American made? Damn. This Trump guy means business, or what?

Die US-Army suchte ein „Modulare Handgun System (MHS)“ und SIG Sauer betont, dass sich an der Pistole mit üblicherweise 9-Millimeter-Kaliber die Größe der Pistolengriffe austauschen lässt und auch das Kaliber geändert werden kann.

Nervous Germans More Nervous Than Usual For Some Reason

I haven’t been able to decrypt this Deutsche Welle article yet but at least there aren’t that many words in it.

Trump

Here are most of them: Disbelief… bad dream… cold sweat… irritation… extremely alarming… dangerous… help of fake news… populist… irrational… awful phantom… concerned… not been very convincing… catastrophic mistake… contempt… inauguration.

“There are no signs showing that it will be good.”

Leading German Fake News Provider Upset That News It Calls Real Now Being Called Fake By Others

Aghast (along with CNN) at allegations by President-elect Donald Trump that the fake news they and other major fake news purveyors regularly claim to be real is actually fake, German fake news provider Der Spiegel now claims that the President-elect’s allegations are “like totally fake already.”

Fake

“He can’t be serious, can he? Let’s get real here, people,” said one empörter (indignant) journalist in Hamburg. “He’s faking it. And I know a fake when I see one. That’s my job. And I mean that. For real.”

Fake News ist für manche die unbelastete Variante von “Lügenpresse” und ein bequemes Schlagwort für alles Neue, was einem nicht in den Kram passt. Auch in Deutschland findet das Nachahmer bei jenen, die die von ihnen sogenannten Mainstream-Medien ins Visier genommen haben.

German Of The Day/Year: Postfaktisch

That means post-factual – and has just been selected Germany’s word of the year 2016.

Postfaktisch

“This awkward adjective describes the development in which public debates are defined more and more by temperament and feelings than by facts. This may not be a term used in everyday speech, the experts admit, but crucial here is that it reflects central events that have taken place this year – from Brexit to Trump.”

Das sperrige Adjektiv beschreibt die Entwicklung, dass öffentliche Debatten zunehmend von Stimmungen und Gefühlen und weniger von Fakten bestimmt werden. Dies sei zwar kein Begriff aus der Alltagssprache, räumen die Experten ein. Entscheidend sei jedoch, dass er zentrale Ereignisse des Jahres widerspiegele – von Brexit bis Trump.

Germany To Take Over Leadership Of The Western World

This is one of the best satires I have read in a long, long time.*

America

One-Hundred Years of Fear – America Has Abdicated Its Leadership of the West

For 100 years, the United States was the leader of the free world. With the election of Donald Trump, America has now abdicated that role. It is time for Europe, and Angela Merkel, to step into the void…

The leaders of the West, minus America, face monumental tasks ahead. They are tasks for German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

* This is a satire, right?

Expat Democrats Utterly Speechless But Vow To Remain Smug

Smug

The crowd of expats who packed the Democrats Abroad election night party in Berlin to watch live election coverage by American broadcaster CNN was conspicuously young and conspicuously female. There had been much talk about apathy among so-called millennials in this campaign, but you wouldn’t have known that in the German capital…

Of course that was then and this is now.

“I’m in too much of an emotional state,” said expat Democrat X, when asked what she thought about the new President-elect. “No comment. But wait. I will say that you can bet we will bounce back from this and be just as self-righteous, priggish and self-satisfied as we ever have been. Mabe even more so. But just not right now, OK?”