Owner: Observing Hermann... URL:http://hermann.blog.com/ Join Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2007 11:50:46 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Obviously dazed and confused about Germany in general and Berlin in particular, an amnesic American (or so his claim) observes the world around him in quiet (not) desperation. Site statistics:Click here
Highbrow Boxing 2007-11-19 01:25:00 I can’t understand why nobody thought of this any sooner. After all, it is a well-known fact that most boxers are avid chess players whenever out of the ring. Just think of Joe Frazier’s famous Scandinavian defense and surprise checkmate move against Mohammed Ali in their hotel lobby right before the thrilla of Manilla. Or who could forget Mike Tyson’s stunning Latvian gambit against Frank Bruno in the locker room just minutes before beating and eating the stuffing out of him?
Well now boxers don’t have to wait until the boxing match is over before they can start contemplating their next chess moves again. They can play chess during the match. That’s right. They can mentally intimidate their opponent on the chessboard while beating the crap out of him in the boxing ring, all at the same time. At least that’s how they do it here in Berlin. Just ask Frank Stoldt a.k.a. “Anti Terror”, the latest Grand Master.
Chess Boxing is all the rage here these days, or it could be
Civil Servants threatened with starvation wage 2007-11-28 02:02:00 In a shocking move that took thousands of well-fed Beamte completely by surprise, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has actually and even seriously suggested a newly-drafted government plan in which Beamte should be paid according to something he called their “performance” (what they actually do) in the future.
“Huh? What?” asked one dumbfounded representative from the influential German Beamtenbund (Civil
Service Employees Association) after he and the rest of the stunned audience realized he had not been joking and stopped chuckling in an abrupt fashion. “Getting paid ‘for what we actually do’? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
A visibly nervous and heavily perspiring Schäuble then went on to explain that in the future, “a civil servant’s remuneration will be calculated to a much greater degree upon his or her performance, dedication and know-how.” After a few more minutes of awkward silence, another skeptical Beamte raised his hand. Read more:Servants
, threatened
The China Syndrome 2007-11-27 01:06:00 Not unlike the prancing and dancing that takes place whenever Valdimir Putin waves the Russian gas carrot in front of the noses of certain energy-addicted Western Europeans (only much worse, of course), the Chinese take visible pleasure in orchestrating calculated snubs to punish those who might not dance to their tune precisely as they wish.
By playing the "French card" with Nicholas Sarkozy during his first official visit to Beijing this week, the Chinese want to make clear to the world what happens to those who consider doing such abominable things as meeting with the Dalai Lama or openly discussing China
’s less than optimal human rights record. Well actually, they just wanted to make this clear to Germany. I suppose they’ve given up on hopeless cases like the USA by now.
Sarkozy flew back home with a big fat pile of mega-lucrative business deals and a sore shoulder from all the patting the Chinese gave him there. Very little was said about Mr. Lama and said human rights. An Read more:Syndrome
Galileo comes out of suspended animation 2007-11-26 06:24:00 After the private consortium that wanted in on the EU’s Galileo
satellite navigation project wanted out after all, Galileo was quickly and quietly put to sleep. You know, like they had to do with Hal (thanks w00titude)?
It was hoped that someone else would come along who would take the bait or buy the swamp land or whatever it was they were supposed to do, but bait takers have clearly been few and far between. That is why the EU has now taken the initiative and has decided to fill out the project’s massive budget gap all by itself. Who needs private investors anyway? It’s only money, after all.
So despite Germany’s resistance (they are going to be the folks who will be shelling out the most), Galileo has now been resuscitated with a massive injection of 2.4 billion euros. Its heart is beating again, so-to-speak. And the clock is ticking. And the teeth are grinding. At least in Berlin they are. But they should look on the bright side. At least nobody has to worry about th Read more:comes
, suspended
Die Gedächtniskirche 2007-11-25 00:50:00
alt : http://www.youtube.com/v/mw-RxPqIni0
Houston, we have a dollar problem 2007-11-24 02:13:00 Who doesn’t? And as if anybody in Houston
could help. That Airbus makes impressive technology was already a well-known fact, but that they could also build planes able to sink as fast as the US dollar can was thought to be absolutely impossible. Up until now, that is. But it turns out that they can. And now scientists have figured out how they do it. Any company can do this, it seems: All you have to do is sell your products in dollars and pay your employees in euros.
But there’s more. If you really want to fly with the eagles, base your infamous Airbus “Power8” reorganization plan (the firing of 10,000 people and selling of several production facilities) on an exchange rate of $1.30 to $1.35 and then watch in awe as that ever-reliable US greenback drops even lower to around $1.50 where it is now. No wonder German Airbus boss Thomas O. Enders is talking about needed adjustments to counterbalance the “life-threatening” effects the weak dollar is having upon his company.
How rad is that? 2007-12-05 01:32:00 How Riesenrad (Ferris wheel), that is. Bankrupt Berlin is resorting to yet another desperate measure to remain poor but sexy no matter what. And loving every minute of it, of course. Amusement park fan and manager mayor Klaus Wowereit proudly displayed plans for the construction of the $176 million Great Berlin Wheel yesterday, a 185-meter tall Ferris wheel which will stand taller than the London Eye Ferris wheel in, uh, London, and will then become the biggest Ferris wheel in all of Europe.
When asked how the construction of such a structure would help the city of Berlin address its pressing budget problems and over-stretched finances or the city’s terribly high unemployment rate or its infamous bureaucratic overhead or its inability to pay for the renovation of its own Staatsoper or to rebuild its own Stadtschloss or to even keep its well-loved Tempelhof Airport open or to do (or even not do) a hundred other things, Wowereit responded by saying: “Huh?”
And then Ch
Airbus to dump on or at least with the US 2007-12-04 01:05:00 In a thinly-veiled effort to exploit low-wage and low-cost countries as a production base in order to export their finished products back to more advanced economies at a much higher price, the people at Airbus
are considering plans to build a final assembly plant in a place called Mobile, Alabama.
The euro's seemingly unstoppable climb (or dollar’s fall, if you prefer) has put the Airbus mother ship EADS in a bit of a bind these days and has compelled it’s purebred European managers to actually (and even seriously) consider such a regrettable and thoroughly tasteless idea.
According to one unconfirmed report, Airbus would only make such a move if it gets a US Air Force contract for refueling military aircraft (how yucky and distasteful is that?). If the Europeans win the contract, Airbus would then modify its A330 passenger jets to meet US military requirements (they have to be able to fly). Like, will the horror of this ever end or what? But the factory would also be able to Read more:least
No climate contradictions here 2007-12-03 00:11:00 By being the world's sixth largest emitter of greenhouses gases, manufacturing some of the most polluting cars on the road, rejecting speed limits to cut CO2 and replacing its nuclear power with coal-burning plants, Germany hopes to set a good example for other nations at the upcoming Bali climate conference, Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her weekly podcast.
Merkel, who made fighting climate change a keystone of her government's program during Germany’s presidencies of the G-8 and EU this year, said the Bali conference will be a crucial one for explaining to other nations what they need to do to help the Germans in their heroic effort to stop catastrophic floods and droughts, melting ice caps, disappearing coastlines and deadly heat waves while they eat their climatic Kuchen (cake) at the same time.
“A timetable for countries other than Germany must be decided upon in Bali under which we can negotiate a successor agreement to the Kyoto agreement by the Read more:contradictions
Germans want dollar to stop sliding already if you don’t mind us asking pretty please 2007-12-01 10:05:00 Always prepared to pass along good advice to someone else, German Economics Minister Michael Glos has called upon the United States to do something about the sliding dollar. “Hello, Earth to US, Earth to US,” he said before a less than amused Bundestag that represents, among other things, big important German exporters who are now slowly starting to feel the growing exchange-rate pressure doch (after all). “Puh-lease slow down the dollar's free fall now. It’s been fun, I’m sure, but I think we’ve all had enough. Bitte kommen (Do you read me?)”
Speaking during a budget debate in the German parliament, Glos lectured Washington about not trying to “fix structural problems in the US economy” by devaluing the dollar. “We don’t understand why you would be trying to fix structural problems with your economy in the first place.” He said. “We have certainly never considered doing such a thing so why should you?”
“Not even that economy (meaning the Read more:Germans
, asking
Tom cleans up 2007-11-30 00:31:00 In a move many here are calling as despicable as the infamous Hitler-Stalin Pact, Tom Cruise has been honored with Germany’s prestigious Bambi Award for something called his “willingness to undertake brave projects”. That Tom Cruise would even be willing to show himself in public in Germany certainly proves this risk-taking willingness of his, but that Germans are suddenly prepared to celebrate someone whom they have systematically depicted as being the devil incarnate up until now makes experts wonder what is really behind this bizarre award pact.
alt : http://www.youtube.com/v/gePLI7ZTIB0&rel=1
“They’re obviously just lulling us to sleep,” claimed one un-named German filmmaker just before leaving the country. “Just because the Bambi comes with stipulations for non-aggression between German socialite film puke types and Tom Cruise doesn’t mean that there aren’t any secret protocols in there. I think they’re planning to divide up independent neighbor
Traditional families on the march 2007-11-29 02:57:00 To extinction, I mean. Or do you think the readers, German or otherwise, actually believe these latest statistics? I have my doubts. Are we really supposed to believe that almost half the families in Berlin, for instance, do not consist of the “traditional” mother-father-child/children model? Are we really supposed to believe that other “modern” forms of single-parent families and similar Lebensgemeinschaften (forms of cohabitation) are the wave of the future?
Like I said, I have my doubts. It’s more than half in Berlin, I’m sure. And these so-called modern family forms have been the future here (and elsewhere) for quite some time now. And the real news is that these statistics don’t really mean anything (I know, they never do). If you take not such a close look around you, you will see that the so-called traditional families that still do exist here are unfortunately no less psycho than the alternative forms supposedly replacing them. And that’s saying a lot. T Read more:Traditional
Simply complicated 2007-12-13 02:14:00 Television news in Germany is einfach kompliziert (simply complicated
). Or it can be, if you are the average, news-watching German. It appears that unless it has to do with the no-brainer stuff like climate catastrophe hysteria or your run-of-the-mill America bashing, the way that the serious and expensive, state-run channels present their news issues often goes right over the well-educated German head.
A survey has indicated that a wide variety of big peculiar German words used during these newscasts (more big and peculiar than usual, I mean) go in one ear and right back out the other. And is it any wonder with creations like "Vorteilsschöpfung" (advantage fabrication?) or "Tarifautonomie" (tariff autonomy) or "Basta-Politik" ("that's it" or "end of the discussion" politics)? And that last one was an old favourite here, I thought, from the days of Gerhard Teflon Schröder himself.
News people are justifying these strange word inventions due to the immen
Dramatic proportions 2007-12-11 23:48:00 It appears as if Germany has been victimized yet again. Only this time it's the climate. That everything is falling apart and sinking into chaos and ushering in the apocalypse has always been a well-established fact in this country, of course. But that the current levels of devastation and mayhem and downright discomfort have reached such dramatic proportions has even surprised the odd German or two (tops).
According to a highly-scientific study put out by an organization that actually gets paid to watch Germany (must be nice, the getting paid part I mean), Germany is one of the top ten countries worldwide that is getting wiped off the face of the earth by climate change as we speak, so-to-speak. Of the so-called "developed" countries, only France is worse off, and they don't even know it yet (they don't have a Francewatch, I guess). But the French probably wouldn't care less if they knew about it anyway.
After carefully reading this study, and you know that everybody w
Where else would these films premiere? 2007-12-11 01:03:00 An American documentary about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq will be among four world premiers to take part in the competition at Berlin's upcoming 58th annual Berlinale Film Festival.
"S.O.P" (Standard Operating Procedures) by director Errol Morris will of course be a purely objective and even-handed look at the examination techniques used by American interrogators at Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison and will certainly be a valuable contribution to the long-awaited and first ever uncolored and unemotional assessment of the present day situation in Iraq.
The other impartial and unprejudiced contributions will include "There Will Be Blood", starring Daniel Day-Lewis, a story about a poor silver miner who lives the American Dream and viciously claws his way to the top to become an unspeakably horrible and exploiting, blood-sucking US oil magnate, "Gardens of the Night", about two innocent Third World children abducted by money-hungry American mercen
Join the ban wagon! 2007-12-10 00:53:00 Unready, unwilling and unable to ban the openly violent neo-Nazi NPD, the German government has now decided to declare the Church of Scientology unconstitutional so it can later not ban those wackos, either.
Using the same highly unsuccessful techniques that allowed Germany's highly high court to deny the banning of the NPD back in 2003, the German government has given its security services a year's time to gather enough evidence to enable them to not enable them to outlaw the so-called "church". Germany hopes with this to become the first western country to fail loudly and miserably at having tried to shut Scientology down.
Authorities here are convinced that, being German, they can much better recognize what the suppression of individuality, the brainwashing of vulnerable minds and plots to take over the world really and truly look like while the rest of you complacent fools just sit there passively on your cushy sofas watching television or maybe blogging as these sinister
Turning lights out may turn the lights out 2007-12-08 02:24:00 That the German Word of the Year was going to be Klimakatastrophe (climate catastrophe) certainly wasn't one that anyone here would have bet against. But now it appears that a handful of ruthless pranksters at Greenpeace and co. are going to take advantage of this hysterical situation and play one of their biggest and most hysterical practical jokes yet.
Tonight's planned "lights out" action in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, in which millions of homes and businesses will turn their lights off for five minutes at 20:00 (8 p.m.), and meant as it is to draw attention to the world climate change conference in Bali, may draw more attention than originally intended. European energy companies are worried that once everybody turns the lights back on again at 20:05, the sudden surge will overload the power grid.
"Even though we don't live in a backwards place like the United States of America," one spokesman for Germany's BDEW (Big Damned Energy Waster
Enter YouSue 2007-12-07 01:08:00 Caught yet again fighting the good fight in the battle that was won for them decades before their births, concerned Germans in the Left Party (and that's the only kind there are there) are going to sue Wikipedia to clean up its dirty little brown past act. Or present, I should say. Deputy Left Party Person Katina Schubert is suing Wikipedia's German site for containing much too much too much Nazi symbolism, most of it having to do with the Hitler Youth movement.
"This type of slimy symbolism simply has to go," said the irate lefty in Berlin. "We think that there should be more pleasant stuff like colorful balloons and pretty flowers and photos of Knut whenever referring to the Hitler Youth movement, and not so much of this Hitler and swastika crap. It's absolutely disgusting"
Another spokesman for the unbelievably red and weltfremd (quixotic) party indicated that once all the Nazi stuff is gone, other distasteful German symbolism may soon be "sued out" of the pop
Bin Laden suspected of hiding in pyramid 2007-12-06 01:03:00 After shaking up the Western World with the shocking discovery that eating nothing but McDonald's food for a month straight does strange things to the human body (and who could have imagined that?), investigative filmmaker Morgan Spurlock now claims to have shockingly discovered the living remains of underground terrorist Osama bin Laden, underground, so-to-speak, in (or at the very least hiding
behind) a so-called Egyptian pyramid.
Rumors of his actually not-so-latest shocking discovery have been out there for quite some time now after he showed 15 minutes of super size secret documentary footage at the Berlin International Film Festival in February. But none of the select group of potential buyers present thought that knowing the whereabouts of the world's most sought-after man would be all that interesting to the viewing public. Up until now that is, for some strange reason.
Perhaps it has something to do with the conviction of three Middle Eastern men in Düsseldorf yesterd Read more:Bin Laden
Germans expected up to spend 700 euros more in 2008 2007-12-22 02:57:00 Based on figures offered by the GfK research group, a broad improvement in German consumer spending is expected over the coming weeks and months to, uh, come.
With figures on all spending indexes looking rosy, some optimistic experts even forecast that Germans
might possibly spend over 700 euros
more in 2008 than was spend during the current year. That will of course be the grand spending total for all German consumers combined, but still.
A "willingness to buy has increased dramatically" said one beaming economic expert. "Of course a willingness to buy isn't actually "buying' in the strictest since, of course, but it has increased nonetheless. And that's a good thing. Isn't it?"
"And although spending 700 euros might not seem like a whole lot of money once you divide up among 80 million people," another expert added. "Don't forget that a whole lot of these folks are really tight"
"So this gives rise to hope that consumption will gradually live up to its
American hassled and attacked at German McDonald's, US troops to now stay longer 2007-12-21 01:23:00 All it took was one little "Heil Hitler" and a kick to the shins to place the United States and German
y on the brink of war again or something again. In the early hours of Saturday in Gelsenkirchen, at a McDonald
's restaurant of all places, a 54-year-old American
was attacked by a German customer who was offended at having to listen to the guy speak English.
"We are in Germany. German is spoken here," the irate German said, right on both counts. "We may not speak the best German by international standards or anything, of course, but at least we try. So shut the *#!?*# up and whip some Deutsch on me, you cultureless American hick" The dumbfounded American, dumbfounded, then threatened to call the cops at which point the hot and bothered German kicked him soundly in the ankles and did his little Hitler salute thang. The American was then whisked away to a German hospital where he underwent surgery for his leg injury (it is common practice to have to undergo surgery for
Work until you are 67? 2007-12-20 01:44:00 In Germany? How is that supposed to work if nobody here even works until 65 now? Well, that's not quite true. Some really, really clever investigative journalists and/or scientific study people did some groundbreaking research and discovered something that apparently no one in Germany had been aware of up until now for some inexplicable reason: Only 5 percent of the working population in Germany ever makes it to the official retirement age of 65 before retiring.
This is the land of early retirement, in other words. Germans actually start retiring with 55 and the fewest of them stick it out until they are 60. Only die Dummen (the dummies) work as long as they are supposed to work. So what does the German government do about this unacceptable situation that is actually perfectly acceptable but nobody is allowed to admit it? They introduce a retirement age of 67.
No, think about it. This is more clever than you think (it has to be). By slowly phasing in an official retirement age of
SPD to cast the first stone 2007-12-19 00:54:00 In yet another pitiful Ablenkungsmanöver (red herring) to distract the public from its own gastly shortcomings, Germany's SPD is now calling for sanctions on energy-intensive American export products if the US (UmweltSchänder or environment desecrater) "continues to obstruct international agreements on climate protection", one of the party's tens of thousands leading environmental experts said yesterday. Never mind about Germany's international agreements within the EU, though. That's here in Europe and is different or something.
The SPD's notorious Verständnis (understanding) for its own environmental inconsistencies when it comes to, say, dealing with Germany's, hmmm, let us call it "powerful" German automobile lobby, this is of course anything but vorbildlich (exemplary) - just think car fan Schröder - but slamming the Empire of Environmental Evil always gets applause and doesn't cost anything, which is of course das A und O (the essential t
Let them eat lobster 2007-12-18 01:16:00 Communism just ain't what it used to be, folks. And let's all work to keep it that way. One of Berlin's top communists (honest, they really do still exist here), Sahra Wagenknecht is certainly doing her level best to contribute to this heroic, international effort, so make damned sure that you do your best, too.
Recently having ordered a "rich man's dish" of lobster at a Strasbourg restaurant, the Stalinist Left Party sweetheart apparently didn't think to send it back for some pale soup and stale bread in time and was caught on camera betraying her party, her past, and her lofty political ideals, ideals which clearly leave no room for capitalist stalk-eyed decapod crustaceans like that. Some say she even ordered Coke with her L Word, too.
And this at a time when her party generates the few votes it gets by selling what it packages as being the growing inequality between rich and poor in Germany. How shocking.
And more shocking still, Wagenknecht is
New technology to revolutionize sea travel 2007-12-17 01:14:00 German engineers have come up with a new technique for moving ships through the high seas in a way which they hope will not only reduce shipping costs, but will also dramatically reduce the emission of dangerous greenhouses gases, as well. The new device, called a "sail", is kind of like this big sheet thingy with ropes attached to the ends of it which harnesses invisible ocean winds and tugs the ship it is attached to through the water as if where moving all by itself and everything.
"This marks the beginning of a revolution in the way that ships will be powered," said one spokesman for SkySails, the company behind the revolutionary new idea. "We believe that sails like this will be able to reduce fuel consumption up to 50 per cent, depending upon the wind conditions, of course. We even believe that one day, with a small enough boat, you won't even need to have an engine at all"
In light of the tremendous amounts of CO2 which were blown into the earth's atmos
Germany to play larger role in the world 2007-12-15 01:25:00 With an emphasis placed on the "play" part here, of course. The silly Kuchen(cake)-eaters. "I'm back" already, or what (of course he's not German, but still)? Yeah, right.
If the results of a survey that only Germans could come up with are any indication (the title of the survey was "Who Rules the World"), Germany
's low-profile days on the international stage since World War II (and you can't get much lower than that) may soon be coming to an end.
Fascinating and completely unexpected insights have come to light with this fascinating and completely unexpected survey. For instance: Germans, living in an economic powerhouse as military midgets (except when it comes to arms sales, of course), do not see military strength as an important quality of a world power. "When you look at what qualities Germans attribute to world powers, it comes down to political stability and economic strength" Wow. Is this what they mean when they say checkbook diplomacy?
Or how abo
The Gore and Gabriel Show 2007-12-14 00:54:00 Not satisfied with personally blaming the United States for being "principally responsible" for blocking the non-going progress in battling climate change at the UN climate conference in Bali, ex-United States Vice President and current Savior of the Climatized World Al Gore HIMSELF has called upon Germany's Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel
(HE also likes to refer to him as Mini-Me) to slam the United States, as well.
A visibly uncomfortable and heavily-sweating Gabriel (global warming, remember?), confused at first by Gore's request because that's all he ever does anyway, then promptly jumped in to his standard shtick about how "some political leaders lack the courage to transform into decisions what experts have elaborated" Tja (oh man), Germany and experts, that's a long, sad story, isn't it? And that Gabriel only has the courage to say what one expects him to say, I guess he didn't have the time to elaborate upon that during his speech, either, t
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