Thursday, February 28, 2008

Prince Albert bullied in Berlin

Prince Albert of Monaco, his arm still aching after having been so violently bent behind his royal back, agreed through clenched and smiling teeth to improve the cooperation between his country and Berlin in Germany’s newly-declared unilateral and preemptive War on Tax Fraud.



Summoned to Berlin by a grumpy and frumpy Chancellor Angela Merkel, Albert was made an offer “I just couldn’t and wouldn’t and even didn’t refuse” and agreed to start negotiations on a bilateral agreement between the countries’ tax authorities which will likely end in the removal of his itsy bitsy principality from the OECD’s blacklist of “uncooperative countries in tax matters” or else face war with Germany, whatever comes first.

This list of bad egg countries, often referred to here in Berlin as the Coalition of the Unwilling, also includes Liechtenstein and Andorra. Liechtenstein is already in Arbeit (in the works) and as soon as Andorra can be located, its prince or duke or great uncle or whatever the hell it is will be summoned to Berlin, too.

The government of the United States is keeping a close eye on this very tense situation as the Americans want to finally figure out what the secret is to getting Germany all hot and bothered like this with regards to maybe one or two other pressing international issues already. And after all, Prince Albert is the son of Grace Kelly so lighten up a bit there, Angie. We’ve done a little research on your past and you don’t want us to go public with this now, do you?

Wer ist hier in Andorra Staatsoberhaupt überhaupt?

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klaro.

PS: Unfreekingbelievable, Jolly Roger.
Posted by clarsonimus at 07:35:02 | Permanent Link | Comments (4) |

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Toemb Ryeter

For some strange reason, many Germans insist upon pronouncing the words Tomb Raider as spelled above, more or less. That has nothing to do with this post, of course, but I just thought you might blike to know. No, I take that back. Now I remember. The latest news about the search for the missing and mysterious Bernsteinzimmer (some call it the Amber Room) reminded me of the movie Tomb Raider and that brought me on to the German pronunciation issue.



Anyway, the latest news about The Mysterious Case of the Search for the Bernsteinzimmer (named after famous American conductor Leonard Bernstein decades before his birth - that’s part of the mystery) is that German tomb raiders now believe to have finally located it. Of course this is about the sixtieth time that the Amber Room has finally been located but this time it could really happen, honest.

The chamber was stolen by the Nazis from Catherine Palace in St Petersburg in 1941 and then taken to the mythical city of Königsberg, now  called Kaliningrad, where it was soon to disappear in 1945 at which point it was probably taken by train to Vladivostok where it was than placed on a Greek freighter which later sunk off the coast of Spain and was later recovered by Howard Hughes and then buried in permafrost before a Klingon warship transported it to a Czech copper mine in the middle of the night when nobody was looking. But like I said, other theories also abound. Let’s all keep holding our breaths on this one, okay?

Lara Croft konnte leider diesmal bei der Suche nicht dabei sein.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar doch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:20:42 | Permanent Link | Comments (5) |

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Europeans eat Hollywood’s lunch

So let me get this straight: Englishman Daniel Day-Lewis and Frenchwoman Marion Cotillard get the best actor/actress awards, Spaniard Javier Bardem and Scotswoman Tilda Swinton get the best supporting actor/actress awards, Italien Dario Maranelli wins the best film music and then, even the best foreign film goes to a foreign Austrian-German-(place three or four other random European countries here) production filmed right here in Babelsberg bei Berlin?



Like what the hell is that? Only the Coen brothers managed to hold up our flag with a modicum of self-respect and even they are probably from Brooklyn or some other semi-foreign place like that. Okay then, they're from Minnesota. But that's almost Canada.

I’ve never been as shocked while not watching the annual Academy Awards presentation shown in the middle of the night over here and than reading about it the next morning as I was this year. But I guess I wasn’t the only one. Not watching, I mean. At least now we know why nobody was watching. Europeans in Hollywood? Like how gauche is that?

Früher fand die Verleihung der europäischen Filmpreise in Europa statt.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:11:55 | Permanent Link | Comments (5) |

Monday, February 25, 2008

Fine young radicals gain ground in Hamburg

As rumors of war with Liechtenstein continue to spread, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU were beaten black and blue, or in this case black and green, and lost their absolute majority in state elections in Hamburg yesterday.



The SPD gained ground as did the ungovernable wacko squad Left party from good-old East Berlin, gaining seats in Hamburg for the first time. But with a strong Green showing, and a long Green tradition in this city, many believe that it’s time to think out of the box (real hard for Germans to do) and that Hamburg could and even should now become the first German state to be ruled by a "black-green" coalition. The Greens have been traditional allies of the Social Democrats up until now, you see.

Other than the two obvious advantages of such a possible coalition government at this level (the SPD and the Left would not be in it), many observers believe that this could also maybe pave the way to a cautious beginning for the possible slow start of a somewhat wonderful relationship which could conceivably continue once national elections finally do take place. Like I said, maybe. But, then again, maybe not.

Biodegradable green and black-striped flags are being prepared for hissing should this marriage of inconvenience actually happen, just in case, although a quick honeymoon up on the Baltic is definitely out of the question now.

Ich sage ja.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar doch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:34:13 | Permanent Link | Comments (4) |

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Zappen


alt : http://www.youtube.com/v/Js6ra5cUaqY
Posted by clarsonimus at 08:56:35 | Permanent Link | Comments (6) |

Saturday, February 23, 2008

BE all you can BE

And BE sure that BErlin BEelieves that this is the least it can do, or BE, or BE doing, I should say. The BEroke Weeny City’s not-yet-brand-new-top-secret-but-we-know-all-about-it-anyway-already marketing mission statement “Be Berlin” is about to get released and turn everything around in this upside down town. I don’t know about you, but just hearing the words “Be Berlin” makes me want to got out there and join something or do whatever it is you’re supposed to do upon hearing the words “Be Berlin”. You know, kind of like this old tried and tested marketing slogan did:

alt : http://www.youtube.com/v/QplWbNg57h4&rel=1

Well, we are all certainly going to be able to sleep a whole better here at night (or whenever it is Berliners go to sleep) now knowing that the city can’t be all that broke after all. They’ve got money for this, don’t they? And I’m sure they’ll also be getting a cut on all the “Be Berlin” t-shirt sales, too. Oops, I mean TEE-shirts.

10,6 Millionen Euro sind eine Menge T-Shirts.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

PS: And speaking of BEing all you can BE, how about Europe BEing dependent upon the Russian oil mafia (follow-up from below)? Thanks, Joe.
Posted by clarsonimus at 07:58:51 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Friday, February 22, 2008

Eat the rich but tax them first

The latest German them-up-there-and-poor-us-down-here outrage over The Case of the Liechtenstein Tax Oasis has reached its illogical conclusion for the moment, with the usual suspects like the Chancellor either calling on Liechtenstein to “quickly clear up” its act or the ever loud and loony left calling for the building of barricades and for free beer and non-violent fighting in the streets or for whatever the hell it is they always call for at a critical time in history like this.



But as a capitalist arch-enemy type over at the Wall Street Journal of all places calmly points out, maybe-perhaps-vielleicht it’s time for Germany to start thinking about cleaning up its own act instead: “Germany's progressive income tax system, with a top marginal rate of 47.5%, pretends to be fair and just but its complexity actually smothers justice. The thousands of pages of tax law and myriads of exemptions are baffling. Citizens can never be sure whether they may pay too much by mistake or have exploited all available loopholes. This undermines public confidence in the fairness of a system that invites people to be creative with their tax forms -- rewarding the clever and punishing the honest.”

He means well, of course, but I pity the fool. I pity this poor fool for thinking that anything fundamental or structural or systematic or whatever it is you want to call it can ever really fundamentally, structurally or systematically change in this country. His musing about here is more of a waste of time than he will ever be able to possibly imagine, at least when it comes to anything as byzantine as the German tax code.

So while we’re at it, musing about I mean, and now that the SPD is getting erregt (stimulated) at the thought of breaking ranks with the CDU and jumping into bed with the Left party (for now just at the regional level in Hessen, thanks Roland), why don’t the Germans consider getting this grand coalition nonsense over with for good and for all and call for new national elections so they can send the SPD off into the desert where they belong? Then it will be fundamental-structural-systematic change time, folks. Like I said, a big waste of time. That would be too easy. And that would be too hard.

Wer gewinnt den Oskar dieses Jahr?

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Her damit!

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:05:24 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Thursday, February 21, 2008

From Russian with Love (not)

Strange, all you ever heard about over here up until now was how perfectly reliable Russian gas shipments to Germany were. But now, suddenly, for some inexplicable reason, their pipeline technology seems to have developed a few bugs.



The Russians are working hard to alleviate the problem, I’m sure, just like they did recently with Ukraine, and this is a good thing, although no one here in Germany seems to notice or much care or dare raise their voices all too loudly, probably for some other inexplicable reason - like maybe the fact that Russia supplies them with some 37% of their total oil imports with another 9% being supplied by Kazakhstan and other countries through Russian pipelines, but who’s counting?

The third interruption in Russian oil deliveries by pipeline to Germany in about a year now (but like that’s okay they don’t care, honest), it’s good to know that Russian President Vladimir Putin (and his hand-picked successor Gazprom chairman Dmitry Medvedev) will continue to keep an iron grip on their pipeline and make sure that this type of unfortunate occurrence will never ever happen again until the next time they want it to.

If I didn’t know any better, I would say that technological breakdowns like this are nothing more than a demonstration of power and a clear and present reminder of how dependent Europe has let itself become to Russian oil. But I know better. We all do, don’t we?

Of course demonstrating how a technology can work is also a demonstration of power, too. So I’d say it’s always a good thing to keep your technological options open, whatever they might be. But I’m not a European.

Alles hat seinen Preis.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:35:31 | Permanent Link | Comments (4) |

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Don’t hate me just because I’m beautiful

Germans appear to have a real problem with Heidi Klum. And not just the women, either. As attested to in an article concerning her visit to a German talk show (excuse me, Talkshow) last night, not only is she a “fearsome and cold clone” comprised of something called “German discipline and the American will for advancement” (igitt! as in yuk!) and disgustingly successful in practically everything she does, the 34-year-old glamour “girl” was also just elected Top Model (that’s Topmodel over here) with the Most Sex Appeal (you guessed it, that’s Sexappeal in German). And to add insult to injury, this mega-model mother of all models is the mother of three children, as well. And I’m not even going to mention that compassionate Britney Spears number she just pulled off the other day. Oops, too late.



Now I can think of a lot of words for Heidi Klum, but “fearsome” and “cold” are definitely not two of them. I think I know what her real problem is: She likes herself despite all of her flaws. Uh, or lack of them, I should say. She’s childishly upbeat, relaxed and totally can-do. She’s way too American, in other words. How could the Germans like her? But you go girl, anyway. Run with it, Heidi baby.

I know what German television viewers really want when it comes to successful super model Americans like Heidi Klum: Unsuccessful ones like Bruce. And more drama, baby. Lots more drama.

"Heidi, wieso sehen deine Models alle so dünn aus?"

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 08:03:10 | Permanent Link | Comments (3) |

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

German tax evaders invade Liechtenstein

In a surprise move to anyone living in Germany with less than five or ten million euros at his or her disposal and who may even have to actually work for a living, reports are rolling in that German armored vehicles filled with money have been rolling into the small, landlocked, quaint, peace-loving alpine principality of Liechtenstein. Of course the really surprising thing is that rich Germans and their money have been rolling into Liechtenstein like this for as long as anyone in the know can remember and why it is that this is suddenly considered to be such an issue right now.



But after what started out last week as an investigation into organized crime lead to discoveries of massive tax evasion and the subsequent fall of one of Germany’s most prominent managers, Germans are all hot and bothered about the latest tale of big time unbridled avarice and greed at the highest of German social levels and will continue to be that way for the next three to four days at least.

German tax investigators, always adept at “organizing” paid informants, have paid an underground contact man type in Liechtenstein more than $7 million (about 300 euros or a really expensive dinner there) to provide them with a CD detailing the bank accounts of hundreds of much too wealthy and most likely way too prominent German citizens whose armored money-transporting vehicles just won't stop invading his country already. They have also promised to give him a new identity, but cheap as they are, this will probably only consist of one of those Groucho Marx glasses with nose and mustache thingies.

The Liechtenstein banking group LGT Treuhand behind the banking part of the scandal, controlled by the country’s royal family by the way (“money doesn’t stink”), has lodged criminal proceedings against the “unknown person rat fink” who is now shaking up their quaint little alpine world. This could maybe even lead to war with Germany or something. And that would definetely not be smart because the German invading part has already taken place and would put those unfair wealthy Germans at an unfair advantage. Again, as usual, I mean.

Geld stinkt doch. Deshalb müssen wir es in Liechtenstein unterbringen.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:31:47 | Permanent Link | Comments (10) |
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