There is a popular saying one hears here in Germany from time to time: You haven’t got a chance, use it. And although Germany’s wildly popular teeny rockers Tokio Hotel (wildly popular in Germany that is) were realistic enough not to expect winning the nomination for Best New Artist during the MTV Video Music Awards […]

read more from this topic.....

I can’t really agree with Chancellor Merkel when she announced on Friday that “We’re dealing with a coalition partner that’s becoming increasingly unreliable.” Her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners are no more unreliable now than they have been in the past, and that’s the real problem. But Merkel knows this better than anyone, she only […]

read more from this topic.....

In light of recent increased attacks upon German ISAF forces in northern Afghanistan, it didn’t take long at all for the pullout calls to begin again back home in earnest. These calls have in fact never really stopped, of course. They just become more audible whenever the Taliban reminds Germany that the going in Afghanistan, […]

read more from this topic.....

Despite President Sarkozy’s initiative to lead the EU in a united stand against Russia in the aftermath of that country’s military intervention in Georgia, and its de facto theft of South Ossetia and Abkhazia through occupation and unilateral recognition, it is clear to leaders in the Kremlin that a divided Europe, once again, will enable […]

read more from this topic.....

German Chancellor Angela Merkel certainly means well. But it must be tough when good intentions, especially when they come from the world’s most powerful woman, get laughed at by an autocratic puppet who really couldn’t care less.
That Russia finds Germany’s (OK, the EU’s) “tough talk” about its actions in the Caucasus amusing certainly has its […]

read more from this topic.....

Following Russia’s military intervention in Georgia, Chancellor  Angela Merkel’s more than skeptical view of Russian foreign policy is slowly but surely gaining ground over the atmosphere created by her predecessor’s hopes for a special relationship with Moscow.
As her spokesman made clear yesterday, there is still no firm evidence indicating that the promised Russian withdrawal […]

read more from this topic.....

The Gerhard Schroeder faction in Germany, and there are a whole lot more of them than you would care to imagine, can’t seem to find anything wrong with anything New Old Russia does.

Whether it’s the murder of critical journalists in Moscow or political opponents with polonium in London, convenient “technical” and other difficulties with […]

read more from this topic.....

I don’t know, maybe it’s because of the new and uplifting research that’s come out about how 136 people were killed at the Berlin Wall while trying to escape from East Germany, or maybe it’s the anniversary of the wall’s construction coming up again pretty soon, but everybody in town seems to have gotten all […]

read more from this topic.....

SPD, as in Sorriest Party in Deutschland? Although when you get down to it, Germany’s SPD is actually two parties in one (maybe even three, nobody knows for sure, but the two cadence thing is catchier for the marketing people). You know, like two mints in one? Takes a licking but keeps on ticking? It […]

read more from this topic.....

After considering the possibility that “foreign leaders Barack Obama met with on his mid-campaign overseas trip were merely hedging their bets and don’t believe he will win the White House this fall” The Associated Press notes that many of them treated the candidate like a head of state:  
Jordan’s King Abdullah flew back early from Aspen, […]

read more from this topic.....

The American and European media have been ga-ga, gushing, cynical and sarcastic in covering Barack Obama’s Grand Tour of the Middle East and Europe – sometimes all at the same time.  
In a New York Times op-ed, Einstein Forum director Susan Neiman describes the unmistakably mocking tone several German news magazines took in their coverage […]

read more from this topic.....

Come on, people. You don’t have to be Adrian Monk to figure this one out. As soon as I read about how German government statisticians couldn’t explain the sudden disappearance of over one million Germans, I knew immediately what the deal was (and it was elementary, Watson, or whatever your name is): They’re obviously already […]

read more from this topic.....

And no swearing-in, either (to tell you the truth, swearing is actually allowed here). Not if the politically correct German left in Berlin has anything to say about it, that is.

Believe it or not, when it comes to holding solemn ceremonies in remembrance of soldiers who risked their lives and died for a worthy […]

read more from this topic.....

Ah, nuclear power in Germany. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Well at least not as long no one here is willing to do with less power while paying higher prices for it. And believe me, no one in Germany is or ever will be willing to do that, no one here who […]

read more from this topic.....

With 72 percent of Germans polled being hysterical supporters of Barrack Obama (in more ways than one), it’s hard to rain on everybody’s parade and reign in the enthusiasm, but Chancellor Angela Merkel just couldn’t help herself and felt that somebody had to and has pointed out to her Volk that Obama’s request to give […]

read more from this topic.....

Matthew McConaughey, 38, and his longtime girlfriend, Camila Alves, 25, are welcoming their new son into the world. The baby was born 6:22 pm in Los Angeles. He weighed 7 pounds and 4 ounces. This is the first child for each of them. They gave the baby the name Levi Alves McConaughey.
Alves is a Brazillian model […]

read more from this topic.....

It’s strange that Europe’s biggest high-speed booming economy should have any trouble keeping its own people at home these days. But when you’re an exporting powerhouse like Germany (the world’s number three in armaments, for example, and number one in advice) that just goes with the turf, I guess. Whatever the case may be, more […]

read more from this topic.....

Black and white when it comes to mainstream racial prejudice, I mean, and green when it comes to the way Germans like to see themselves in relation to everybody else in the world.
Naturally tending to keep things in order, a recent study indicates that one in four Germans like to do this by holding […]

read more from this topic.....

Not wirklich (really) all that terribly interested in boring little issues like getting together on sanctions against Iran or sending German troops to southern Afghanistan, German politicians and journalists from both ends of the political spectrum plan to use President George W. Bush’s visit to Germany today as a platform to bombard him with questions […]

read more from this topic.....

What are these guys thinking? Or feeling, I should say. Well, they’re about to get their feelings hurt real bad, that’s for sure. A Swiss company called Genesis Land is seriously planning to build a creationist-based biblical theme-park in Germany of all places, a country where even the churches are aghast at such an idea. […]

read more from this topic.....

In our “WTF” Item for the Memorial Day weekend, we find this little gem in the UK Telegraph:
A German doctor who allegedly sent 900 children to a Nazi death camp has been given a top medical award.
Dr Hans-Joachim Sewering, 92, a former SS member, was honoured for “services […]

read more from this topic.....

End Impunity in the Gambia- Editor MBai Presents Scary And Disturbing Piece To The Ghana Based Africa Legal Aid NGO!!!
End Impunity in the Gambia- Editor MBai Presents  Scary And Disturbing Piece To The Ghana Based Africa Legal Aid NGO!!!
 
The impoverished nation of The Gambia, is currently witnessing untold human rights, social and political crisis. Faced […]

read more from this topic.....

Imagine having your mouth watering for pizza so you decide to look in the freezer for one only to find the bodies of three infants instead. That would really put a damper on my craving. I don’t think I will ever be able to eat pizza again without thinking of this.
A 44 year old woman […]

read more from this topic.....

Proving yet again that you can be a smart and politically-aware German intellectual type and still not have the slightest idea what the Berlin Wall was, photographer Kai Wiedenhoefer and his Left and Green Party supporters in Berlin’s Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district will be exhibiting an exhibition which will equate the West Bank “Wall” with the Berlin […]

read more from this topic.....

If you ask most Germans, and I wouldn’t if I were you, they will tell you that they want to have the Berlin Wall back. They also want the Sandmann, the World Cup, cheaper beer and gasoline, snow in the winter and Sabine Christiansen back, too (ich will, Anne Will, we all will). They will […]

read more from this topic.....

What’s wrong with everybody in Berlin these days? First tons of folks on the right side of the political spectrum fail to show up on election day and effectively sell Tempelhof down the river - and nobody even has the decency to jammern (moan) or meckern (gripe) about it later – and now the folks […]

read more from this topic.....

This discussion about lifting the ban on Hitler’s Mein Kampf in Germany, I mean. And although it’s nothing new when foreigners like me are dismayed about the fact that Mr. Psycho Man’s manifesto is still unavailable here (at least not openly and through the “proper” channels), I vaguely remember having read parts of it once […]

read more from this topic.....

Just three days following the gruesome discovery of twenty dead sheep near a derailed train in a tunnel near Fulda, German police in Thuringia have now reported finding a number of dead cows near a rail crossing in their area, too.

“We don’t want to jump to any conclusions or anything,” said one country bumpkin cop near […]

read more from this topic.....

It was democracy in action again yesterday in Berlin, and it all went terribly wrong. Well, in my view it did. We all know that a government is only as good as the people who elect it (or vote it out of office), but if anybody ever had any doubts about referendums, well, here we […]

read more from this topic.....

Well, I guess it’s time to say goodbye. You know, take leave, adieu, farewell, so long, auf Wiedersehen.

Anyway, I had this strange dream last night. It went something like this:
Hermann: Now, you’ve got to listen to me! Do you have any idea what you’d have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances […]

read more from this topic.....