Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Americanization nation

Everybody knows that Americanization is bad. Just ask any German you may or may not know and he or she will gladly tell you so, although he/she won’t necessarily be able to tell you just why that is. Just is. And this is especially so when it comes to national foreign policy, German national foreign policy, I should say. We don’t need no education, no Americanization, I mean.



So that’s probably why Chancellor Merkel’s CDU is about to unveil a totally way cool and original new foreign policy platform idea which has never been tried before in the Western World and has been custom-made just for Germany. It goes like this: They are planning to consolidate most of Germany’s foreign policy authority directly within Merkel’s Chancellery and thereby create a super-special-super-staff which will then have the capacity to coordinate security policy right there! Wow. Why didn’t we think of that? They are going to call it "the National Security Council", I think, only in German, which will make it sound even more secure. Or maybe they’ll just call it the mini-National-Security-Council-me instead.

None of those reckless, American-style experiments here folks. And it only gets better. Word is that they are also going to propose that Germany take steps to better protect itself from the threat of a nuclear attack from so-called rogue states (no, not France - they mean Iran or something) by supporting the introduction of something they are planning to call “a missile defense shield over Europe”. This is friggin’ brilliant if you ask me, which you won’t, but for that I’m now asking myself why didn’t any of those Schlafmützen (sleepyheads) back in Washington ever think of this. I mean, like what the hell do these people get paid for anyway?

The SPD seems to be against all of this for some reason and has ordered her talking head types to continually repeat the mantra “American-style mistakes, American-style mistakes…”, which wasn’t really necessary because that belongs to their standard mantra repertoire already but sicher ist sicher (better safe than sorry).

Amerikanische Verhältnisse bis zum Umfallen.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

Posted by clarsonimus at 16:33:27 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Help me man, I’m sick

So like here’s the latest and greatest only-in-Germany, help-me-because-I’m-a-victim-too-industry startup. Starting today, a group of business-savvy Berlin psychologists are opening Germany’s first advice bureau for stalkers. These guys are going to make a killing, too.



I know what you’re thinking: An advice bureau for stalkers? What, advising them how to stalk better or what? Nichts da (no way). This outreach center is actually designed to help cure those poor and unfortunate victims who have even poorer and more unfortunate victims that are still out of reach for them. At least for now, huh, huh, huh.

You know, explain to these guys, in this case during the course of 16 well-meant and emotionally-bonding counseling sessions, how it is that most people don’t consider stalking to be very polite or nice and how their obsession, although certainly no fault of their own, is often even perceived as being socially unacceptable and socially irresponsible behavior (or misbehavior if you prefer) and maybe even, as some would say, socially criminal, or criminal, at the very least.

Anyway, other countries have attempted similar anti-stalking programs in the past - in my country, for instance, we call it “jail” - but none have addressed the wants and the needs of the stalker himself with anywhere near the depth and efficiency that this one does, or should.

It’s called The Stop Stalking Office or something, by the way, but I couldn’t find their link anywhere. I do think I know where they are located, though. And now I am going to go out there and find them and observe them, long and hard, no matter what, again and again.

Neue Lebensinhalte braucht der Mensch.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar doch.

PS: I would buy stalk in this company. Get it?
Posted by clarsonimus at 15:34:20 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Monday, April 21, 2008

Democracy? Nein, danke!

Think the old Pink Floyd “we don’t need no education” line only replace it with democracy and that’s what you’ve got here in Germany, folks. If you trust these latest survey results, that is (which I don’t, nicht wirklich). Hey, that was from The Wall, wasn’t it? How ironic.



Anyway, according to the Leipzig Institute for Market Research, only 60 percent of Germans surveyed have confidence in the democratic system as it is practiced today in the Federal Republic of Germany (in the eastern part of Germany it’s less than half at 44 percent). But when it comes to authority, the survey says that 85 percent of Germans trust authority figures, like their police.

Don’t get me wrong, I think trusting the police is a good thing. But how does all of this fit together? On the one hand you’ve got this perpetual gebetsmühlenartig (repeated like a mantra) “Nie wieder Krieg!” and “Nie wieder Faschismus!” and down-with-authority chant going on 24/7, while on the other hand the same people seem perfectly prepared to toss their tried and true democratic system out the window (the only system that has ever really worked here, by the way) and maybe even make themselves comfortable for a while in the next police state experiment while they’re at it. Or what else does this mean?

And these are the same Germans who want a permanent seat in the UN, too? Like I said, none of this fits together. But how do those other old lyrics go again? "You don’t miss your water until your well runs dry."

Democracy schmockracy!

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 17:09:33 | Permanent Link | Comments (9) |

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Everybody has doubts

Everybody has doubts now and again about decisions they have made. Even politicians do, although they are always the very last to admit it. It’s understandable, it could mean your job after all.



And although Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit may haughtily dismiss Chancellor Merkel’s recent comments supporting keeping Berlin’s Tempelhof airport open as being a “transparent party political maneuver”, and he should certainly know one of those when he sees one, it’s looking more and more like he and his left-wing buddies midtown are beginning to doubt their decision to and insistence upon shutting the place down.

On April 27 the city will vote on a referendum to keep Tempelhof open, the issue now having turned into a hot partisan battle between SPD and the Left on the left (duh) and Merkel’s conservative CDU on the right (it's also an issue between old West-Berlin and the Hauptstadt der DDR, of course, but nobody wants to say that out loud because that would be rude). And depending upon how the Berliners decide to vote, and it is their decision after all, Wowereit’s “fears of legal complications”, should the airport be allowed to stay open, are going to be the least of his worries. It could mean his job after all.

Why am I enjoying watching this grassroots rebellion stuff so much? Why not? Come to think of it, how could I not?

Ich bereue diesen Schritt nicht, dafür (ver)zweifle ich daran.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

Posted by clarsonimus at 09:27:19 | Permanent Link | Comments (19) |

Friday, April 11, 2008

Thou shalt not use his moustache in vain

Damn. First it was my guitar wants to kill your mama and now it’s my mama wants to kill your guitar.



Frank Zappa’s widow Gail is suing the organisers of the German open-air Zappanale, now in its nineteenth year, claiming that the organizers must cough up $400,000 for the right to use her husband's name and his trademarked (by her) moustache/goatee combo or else. She even wants a statue of Zappa in Bad Doberan, the small town in which the festival is held, to be removed. Huh? Whatever. The Germans really are crazy about Frank Zappa, I guess.

Come on, Gail. I am the slime (as in you), or what? You are absolutely free to do this, of course, but these guys can’t afford no shoes as it is already so wake up from your overnight sensation and drop the cosmic debris and stop pretending you’re Debra Kadabra or whoever and go out and get your cheap thrills somewhere else because it can’t happen here.

And actually it has happened here, for the past nineteen years like I said, so why haven’t you said anything up until now? Like lighten up already and put on some tunes for a while. But this time you ought to skip Freak Out! maybe.

“Nothing is all I want, a true Zen saying.”

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:53:50 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Eight will get you fifteen

Which will mean about eight again. You try and ignore this stuff for as long as you can, but when a German court rules that a woman who killed eight (maybe nine) of her newborn babies and buried them in flower pots in the garden of her parents’ home got sentenced to sage und schreibe (believe it or not) fifteen whole years of prison (which will break down to about half of that, of course), well, you really do start to wonder if something very strange is maybe not going on here after all. About one year for each baby killed? Not bad.



The latest baby killing the other day is just another in a very long line of recent infant murders which have practically all taken place in Germany’s Wild East. And when the Minister President of Saxony-Anhalt (himself an “Easterner”) suggested that these killings are a bizarre remnant of Communist East Germany’s institutionalized abortion policy, he was called down and booed to order by the politically correct immediately, of course. It looks to me like he may have been on to something, however.

I just don’t get it. I can’t see how anybody’s life in such an affluent society could be that messed up. Or is it the affluence itself that’s behind all of this? Somebody smart explain this to me please.

German justice in action again.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:39:16 | Permanent Link | Comments (10) |

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Hard as Jell-O as usual

This video was promoting ideas which were not nice and unpleasant to hear, especially for those who might kill us otherwise, so it had to be verboten.



Just look at that poster. We don’t want to end up living in the US American Wild West, now do we? Did you know that in that country (in the non-virtual part of it at least) you can purchase and even read a book called Mein Kampf, for instance, and not be threatened with a car bomb because of it? It’s that Wild. You can’t imagine having that kind of Wildness in virtual America or even in Germany can you? Me neither.

Nope, this freedom of speech stuff only leads to hurt feelings and that would be a dog gone shame and that is why over here in Germany (or "out there" in virtual America) there are concerned watchdogs everywhere who make sure that all of the people are pleased all of the time and that we are constantly reminded that their own #!’”*# doesn’t stink there, either.

You can speak all you want to here, just don’t say anything.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

Posted by clarsonimus at 17:03:59 | Permanent Link | Comments (4) |

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

No headscarves, but the decision on banning German-grown suicide bombers is still out

Now that a German high court has upheld a regional ban on teachers wearing the Muslim headscarf in public schools, many German converts to Islam fear that future court decisions could also infringe upon their right to carry out suicide bombings against Americans and other infidels, as well.

“This ruling is a clear reflection of the culture of intolerance, fear and injustice that is slowly and insidiously creeping into German society and is directed against peace-loving headgear-toting Muslims everywhere,” said one irate Islamic legal expert. “Like what are they going to forbid us to do next, from carrying out our religiously-motivated car bombing rituals in Afghanistan and Iraq? Germany has no jurisdiction there, you know. Jeez. What has this country come to?”

The headscarf decision overturned a ruling by a lower German court which had argued that the teacher had a right to wear the headscarf because Roman Catholic nuns in the same region of Germany wore habits while teaching at public schools.

Although clearly discouraged by the decision, German Muslim lawyers are making preparations for any eventuality. It is believed, for instance, that any talk of banning German Muslim suicide bombers in the future will be promptly met with legal suits arguing that Lutheran and Unitarian suicide bombers blow up Americans and other westerners in just the same way.

We’re just regular old-fashioned God-fearing folks like everybody else.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 17:12:23 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

Saturday, March 08, 2008

German Justice

The German justice system is just as screwed up as it is everywhere else, only different. Not satisfied with merely having a flawed system, the Germans have devised one that regularly blows up in their faces, as well. And nobody even notices anymore. Or maybe I’m the only one that sees it that way. It’s another one of these think-of-our-history-let’s-be-über-politically-correct-and-turn-the-thing-on-its-head-again kind of things.



Think Dirty Harry without the happy end (well, I thought it was a happy end). A convicted child killer is demanding 10,000 euros Schmerzensgeld (compensation) for legal expenses from the state because a cop interrogating him threatened him with torture (a German Dirty Harry can only threaten, of course). The Federal Constitutional Court thinks this is a reasonable thing to demand and has basically told a lower court to give it to him.

This guy has been given a life sentence here which comes out to fifteen years tops and then gets the equivalent of some nice little Startkapital (seed capital) for when he comes out to kill again? Why not? But do the murdered child’s parents get any? Oh, they’re rich so they don’t need it and that’s why the kid got murdered in the first place (being rich here is practically a crime too, by the way). And the cop and the cop’s boss who condoned the threat? They’re through, of course. We do live by rule of law here, after all.

I think this cop and his boss deserve a medal for bravery, if only the Germans had such a thing. Oh, they do now doch (after all)? But this isn’t Hollywood and they’re not in the German army, much less in combat. Unless you want to call it the combat for truth, that is.

Schadenersatz schon. Aber für wen?

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

PS: And no. Of course I don’t condone torture. And I don’t support state-subsidized convicted murderers, either.

Posted by clarsonimus at 08:34:40 | Permanent Link | Comments (5) |

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

German soldiers unfit for some reason

Talk about fat and sassy. A German parliamentary report has determined that 40 percent of all German army personnel are overweight, compared to 35 percent in the same civilian age group, and that 8.5 percent of these soldiers are grossly overweight, as well, which is just plain gross. They are also unfit, smoke too much, never clean up their rooms and fidget around whenever you speak to them.



"To put it simply: Our soldiers are just too fat and they don't get enough exercise,” said armed services lawmaker Reinhard Robbe at a news conference in Berlin, visibly angeekelt (disgusted) by the report he was being forced to read. “And I don’t just mean military exercise, either. What we ought to do here is actually have our soldiers do something from time to time. You know, like go to war and shoot at people, get shot back at, stuff like that. Otherwise this overweight business could eventually lead to some serious health issues.”

The rest of the German parliament quickly thought differently however, shoved Robbe out of the room and then asked German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung and a few top level Bundeswehr generals, fine specimens of physical fitness themselves, to set a good example for the troops and lose a few pounds by taking part in a revolutionary new physical fitness program recently introduced by the Indiana University physical education department.

Jung and co. could not be reached for comment as their mouths were full right then.

Neue Helden braucht das Land.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:15:12 | Permanent Link | Comments (7) |
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