Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Germany steps up pressure on Iran with maglev feasibility study

Still doggedly determined to keep Teheran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and painfully aware of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated Holocaust denials and open threats to Israel, Berlin is stepping up its pressure on the ayatollahs yet again, this time by threatening to deprive them of countless tons of mullah moolah once it begins selling them its high-speed magnetic levitation train technology.



In a stunningly sly move on the ever-changing (not) Iranian crisis chess board, Germany has somehow managed to trick Teheran into commissioning a German engineering company to conduct a feasibility study for building a Transrapid train route linking the Iranian capital with the northeastern holy city of Mashhad. It appears that the Iranians are sick and tired of their own traditional and completely unreliable Persian maglev technology (they call it magic levitation or “flying carpet” technology, however) and Teheran may finally be prepared to knuckle under and become Germany’s Middle Eastern business buddy numero uno without ever once budging one bity little centimeter on any of its controversial policies.

“Old ideas like placing economic sanctions against Iran are out,” said a spokesman for the company doing the study. “Primarily because nobody here ever got around to placing any, of course. This new method is much more clever, however. By depriving Iran of one of it’s most precious natural resources, oil money, they have less and we get more, get it?”

Government spokesmen in Berlin have yet to commit directly on the issue, saying merely that the project is “in the very early stages. We haven’t even given them our bank account numbers yet.”

Wandel durch Annäherung.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:45:47 | Permanent Link | Comments (9) |

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Frustrated German environmentalist to attempt escape from US on small raft

Fed up with Washington’s inability to reach an agreement on climate change with the rest of the “real” world during the upcoming G8 summit, and determined to keep his carbon footprint at an absolute minimum, a frustrated German prisoner of world climate war will be attempting to escape American captivity and head back to Europe using a homemade and environmentally-friendly raft made of reeds and eucalyptus.



The frustrated German school teacher (and heaven knows there are lots of them) will be trying to escape New Jersey and the rest of the country at an undisclosed point in time with eleven other hyper-concerned climatic refugees. This will greatly increase their chances of escape and virtually guarantee maximum media coverage. How and even why he and the others were taken prisoner and imprisoned on US soil in the first place remains a mystery at this time, but being that they put this guy in New Jersey, he must be one bad hombre.

"That no one over here sees how brilliant Berlin’s world-climate-saving proposal is, you know, to allow big companies to buy and sell these super cool, environmentally-friendly certificates in the future which will entitle them to continue releasing unacceptably high amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, well, that just frustrates the hell out of me. All the United States wants to do is to fight climate change by deploying new technologies and encouraging the use of renewable energy. Like, how stupid is that? I’m outta here.”

How long it will take the politically correct raft to reach the Brave New Old World is uncertain at this time, but provided nobody starves to death, it should be able to make it before the next G8 summit. No, not this one, the one following Heiligendamm.

Die Welt ist NICHT flach.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logo.

PS: Thanks for the naked tourist link, Vij.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:14:07 | Permanent Link | Comments (5) |

Monday, May 28, 2007

Ancient specimens discovered protesting near McDonald’s construction site in Kreuzberg

A team of archaeologists from Berlin’s Free University made a stunning discovery over the weekend, dusting off or “unearthing” several intact specimens of what had up until then believed to have been the extinct West-Berlin SO 36 (South-East 36) vegatarian humanoid. They were discovered loudly protesting the construction of McDonald’s first restaurant in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district.



"This is an incredible find," said Dr. Christian Huber, a senior Free University archaeologist and head of the dig team. "Imagine: At one time, this entire area was filled with these spooky, bony, hairy, walking civil disobedients, demonstrating against anything imaginable. But that was long before our era, of course. That a handful of them could have survived unnoticed like this all these years defies the imagination."

The bizarre group of troglodytes was first noticed by two observant Turkish children riding past the construction site on their bicycles. “It seemed like they were trying to start a fire,” one of them said. “You know, to keep warm or something. Only it’s been hot and humid around town these past few days and that made us suspicious. And besides, some of them were eating grass, too.”

The highly-irrational and anti-bourgeois West-Berlin SO 36 vegetarian humanoid is believed to be particularly sensitive to American symbolism of any kind and always reacts aggressively when confronted with it. Some of the scientists believe that the mere thought of a McDonald’s in Kreuzberg, the last place on the planet other than North Korea that doesn’t yet have one, compelled the group to venture out from its top secret hiding place. Others believe that the coming G8 summit in Heiligendamm and its accompanying obligatory protest movement could also have had a hand to play in this, too.

"The evidence of an evolutionary link between the modern Berlin Kreuzberg human and these crude creatures has been sparse at best up until now," said Dr. Huber. “But if we can finally manage to actually catch one of these things, and bath him properly, of course, we might be able to learn more about our own strange selves - and finally be able to explain why the SO 36 species became “extinct” in the first place. But let me tell you, they’re hard as hell to catch. Look out, here comes another rock!”

„Ich mag zwar Burger King lieber, aber trotzdem ist es geil, wenn die hier aufmachen.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

Posted by clarsonimus at 09:10:18 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Dieter Bohlen vs. Spongebob


alt : http://www.youtube.com/v/AAh5qs0Vjxw
Posted by clarsonimus at 09:10:21 | Permanent Link | Comments (3) |

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Climate changing faster than expected between Germany and the US

"The US still has serious, fundamental concerns about this daft, I mean, draft statement," said one Washington official, seething in rage. He was referring to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposal for limiting the worldwide temperature rise which she had hoped would be agreed upon by representatives from the world's leading industrial nations during the G8 summit set to be held in Germany in just two weeks time.

“Like, my temperature starts rising just reading this nonsense,” he continued, hyperventilating a bit. Merkel proposes a commitment to limiting the worldwide temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit and cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

“We have tried to tread lightly on this issue,” another red-faced beltway bureaucrat standing next to the first guy said. “But there is only so far we can go given our fundamental opposition to the German position. Their text has crossed multiple red lines in terms of what we simply cannot agree to, so now we’re going to stop treading and start stomping instead."

The current US government believes that industrial-based problems like these should be tackled with technology-based solutions rather than mandatory emissions targets and it accuses Berlin of actively ignoring this stance. Washington is also a bit miffed that if mandatory emission targets are introduced, other notable emissionistas like China and India will not even be involved in the process.

Berlin has also taken it upon itself to call the recent communiqué final despite the fact that the US has never agreed to any of the climate change language presented in the document. In fact, not only has new problematic text been added here, the majority of the comments on the previous draft have yet to be addressed.

“I sure hope they’ve got their solar-powered, wind-powered, cow dung-powered or whatever the hell kind of-powered power systems up and running in Heiligendamm next month,” one of the pissed-off politicians said. “They’re going to need to cool down the place once we get there.”

Eine kleine Meinungsverschiedenheit zwischen Freunden macht auch nicht den Kohl fett. Der ist schon lange nicht mehr im Amt.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

PS: Thanks for the skeleton link, letters. Talk about going out for cigarettes and never coming back home again!

Posted by clarsonimus at 08:13:12 | Permanent Link | Comments (3) |

Friday, May 25, 2007

Protesters FUMING mad

The German conSCENTution is rePUTRID to be the one of the most STRINGENT protectors of freedom known to man. But no one is inFOULible, it seems. Security concerns for the upcoming G8 summit are REEKing havoc among “POTENTially violent” protesters who SMELL a rat because their SCENTS are being collected by the police using methods reminiSCENT of the old East German SECRETE Police, or Stasi.



In a FRAGRENT violation of their rights, so the protesters, the German state has gone on the OFFENSIVE and is now running RANCID throughout the nation, collecting human scents to trace REVOLTING activists they believe will try to violently disrupt the summit. “No taxation with my PERSPERATION!” they cry, or could, but probably won’t, come to think of it.

I MUSK admit, any deSCENT person would and should be INCENSEd at the INCENSEative methods German police are now undertaking to keep ODOR. And you have to EMIT that it is still a very DIFFUSE situation and if the protesters take ISSUE with that, well, this is nothing to SNIFF at.

But nobody NOSE for sure what these activists are really planning. Remember the violent riots in Genoa back in 2001? What a sorry PERFUMEance that was. And I wouldn’t give them two SCENTS for any promise of good behavior they may make now. I suppose that only time will SMELL for sure.

So if you are planning to be doing any vacationing up near Heiligendamm at the Baltic Sea, it’s up there near the ODOR river I think, and provided you have a nice AROMA with a view, don’t say I didn’t warn you. WHIFF a little caution you should recognize the PUNGENCY of the situation in time and get the hell out of there while the going's still good. Because WHIFF friends like that, you don’t need enemies.

A STENCH in time saves nine, I always say.

FUNKing politicians STINK they can ODOR us around oder wat?

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klaro.

Posted by clarsonimus at 08:35:05 | Permanent Link | Comments (6) |

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Clean but cheap

So what if Americans are Europe’s worst-dressed tourists? We are still relatively polite (third place) and at least we try and speak the local language - the key word here is “try”. Okay, we’re also still pretty loud, too, although I would personally prefer to call this being boisterous. It could be worse, however. We could be Germans. They’re just clean - and cheap.



That’s if you want to believe the responses made by 15,000 European hoteliers to a survey carried out on behalf of travel website Expedia. To sum it up: The worst tourist nation was France, of all places, followed by India, China and Russia. And those inscrutably well-mannered, goody two-shoes Japanese kicked everybody in the butt with them by taking first place in the most polite tourist department. What are they really up to here?

Here are some more gory details if you want: Once the Americans leave the room, other extremely poorly-dressed tourists you might notice will be the British and the Italians. The French and the Spanish dress up the nicest. The Japanese are not only the most polite, they were also the best behaved, bowing their way past the Germans and the Americans – hey, like we were number one back in 2002, what’s wrong here people? The Italians are the loudest, by the way. But just barely. The Americans and the British are breathing/yelling down their necks. Again, the Japanese are the quietest here, too, although it also appears to be quite difficult to get a word out of the Chinese and the Swiss, as well. The Germans are the perfect guests, of course. They actually tidy up their rooms before the chambermaid arrives. They’re awful at giving tips, however.

But who cares what a bunch of snooty European hoteliers have to say about anything anyway? They came in first on the taking-the-dumbest-survey list. Well they came in first on mine. This year they did, I mean.

Hast du auch die Toilette gereinigt, Schatz? Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

PS: Thanks for the naked link, Volker.

PPS: And thanks for the Erni link, indeterminacy!

PPPS: And this guy flipped out completely.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:14:32 | Permanent Link | Comments (17) |

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Neurotic German escape ape escapes again

“They go wild when they see me coming because they know they are going to have fun,” says professional German ape clown Christina Peters, clearly unaware of what the hell she is talking about.



Germans have this weird thing with zoo animals. And I don’t even want to start discussing the Knut phenomenon. It’s bad enough what they do to their apes and chimps. They take them out for pizza or let them slide down slides in the zoo playground or hire friggin’ clowns to keep them from being bored. I swear they do. Is it any wonder that these poor, tormented creatures try and break out any chance they get?

And that’s probably why Bokito the ape went ape last Friday in Rotterdam. He was raised here at the Berlin Zoo, know what I’m saying? He may have even received “the clown treatment”. They ruined him here, in other words.

And Bokito has a long record of breakout attempts under his belt, too. He managed to escape from his cage on two occasions here in Berlin, one time even going over a three meter high fence to scare the ape you-know-what out of visitors and send their silly asses back to the parking lot. Maybe that’s why they had him transferred to that high-security zoo facility in Rotterdam. They call it The Rock, The Rotterdam Rock.

Didn’t do much good though, right Bokito? Some kid with a clown mask must have ventured just a step too close to his cage last Friday and the rest was history.

Eins, zwei, drei… Lasst die Tiere frei!

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klaro.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:41:19 | Permanent Link | Comments (5) |

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Their own private Guantanamo

In a way cool and relatively new ritual established to, well, establish something relatively new and cool like this, German civil rights activists have published their annual Grundrechte-Report (basic rights report), hot on the heels of the government’s annual (take a deep breath here) Verfassungsschutzbericht (The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s Report), an annual study of extremist political movements active in Germany.



These activists are “insgesamt beunruhigt” (for the most part concerned) about the results of their report this year. But how could they not be? They’re friggin’ German civil rights activists. That’s just what one does here, people (whether Verfassungsschutz or civil rights activist). Get concerned, I mean.

It goes like this: The government produces alarming numbers about the rising threat posed to the public by Islamic and neo-Nazi terrorist groups and then the people behind the Grundrechte-Report counter by producing alarming numbers about the rising threat posed to the public by the government that just alarmed them. It’s a Nobel Peace Prize/Alternative Nobel Peace Prize kind of thang, or Academy vs. Golden Raspberry Award, if you prefer.

At any rate, if you want to believe these folks, it looks as if Germany is about to turn into a giant prison camp at any moment. The society is being “Guantanamized” or something and the state is stomping all over everybody by allowing such unspeakable things as police searches (with warrants) at suspected terrorist’s homes, all of this solely due to Sicherheitshysterie (security hysteria), of course.

And it’s true, too, I suppose. I thought that planned train bomb attack last year was absolutely hysterical.

Wer Recht hat, hat auch Pflichten.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:43:28 | Permanent Link | Comments (5) |

Monday, May 21, 2007

Leftist experts honor fallen German soldiers

In memory of the three German soldiers murdered on Saturday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a market in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, leaders of the opposition Left Party in Germany have called for the withdrawal of the country's troops from Afghanistan.



One prominent Left Party leader, Gregor Gysi, said that "the death of these young men made no sense” to him. This is surprising, as Herr Gysi is well-known for his sharp intellect and smart appearance. I can try and explain it to him, though: Their death “made sense” in that they were willing to fight for something we like to call “a good cause”, something worth fighting for, in this case the rebuilding of Afghanistan. The people that killed these soldiers don’t want Afghanistan to be rebuilt, that’s why they murdered them. Does that help make sense out of what happened here?

Another well-loved political commentator, the decrepit and hate-filled Peter Scholl-Latour, has known all along (afterwards) this was coming as usual and has elegantly placed the blame for the killings on the United States, where every good German knows it belongs. “In the moment that the German deployment was placed under American supreme command, it was clear that the insurgents would be after them (the Germans) as a specified target.” Hmmm, interesting theory, and I couldn’t agree more, I think. A German supreme command in Afghanistan, with the corresponding troop strength versteht sich (of course), would be a great way to go. Then none of these attacks would take place anymore, or so his reasoning.

At any rate, “they” (the defeatists from the left) have crawled back out of the woodwork again and will increase in strength with every German death or injury which takes place down there, despite of (or because of) the Merkel government’s firm response to this attack and its firm commitment to the Afghanistan cause. That's just what the guy with the bomb planned.

Or as one speaker for the government put it: “It would be absurd to withdraw and it would only worsen the terrorist threat. It would also increase the demands from terrorists towards the international community and us." That makes perfect sense to me. But then again I’m not as clever as Gregor Gysi and Peter Scholl-Latour.

Aufgeben wäre am leichtesten. Um an Wählerstimmen zu kommen, meine ich.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 08:22:25 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |
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