so this European clothing retailer decided to advertise their jean cuts on youtube and it's unintentionally the funniest shit I've seen today. why? well.
now important context here: in German, die (pronounced 'dee') is just a feminine article, it literally means "the".
but if an ad gets placed in the middle of an English video and doesn't use a single explicitly German word for most of the ad, even a native speaker is gonna think "they want me to die how?" it keeps getting funnier.
I mean, holy shit
i will use these as reaction images until i die
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friends, fellow Mitbürger, and people who have been to germany
i'm on the bus and there is a group of teens behind me playing yellow car and debating (loudly) if taxis count as yellow. so, because i'm curious and for science:
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It's always "tja", and "na" usw but what about "gönn dir"? how's that for an untranslatable expression?does english have anything that even comes close? i could translate "doch" if i really tried but not my baby "gönnen". she's special. the simultaneous tenderness and hilarity that it entails? she's everything and more. no word will ever be her and you know it.
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2024 / 05
Aperçu of the week:
"Remember, democracy never lasts. It soon wastes, exhausts and kills itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide."
(John Adams, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America and its second president from 1797 to 1801)
Bad news of the week:
The war in Gaza threatens to escalate. In response to a drone attack on a US base, the US has bombed pro-Iranian militia positions in Syria and Iraq. More than 85 targets were hit, according to the US military. And Joe Biden made it clear that more military action would follow. It will not be long before Iran retaliates.
The attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on merchant ships in the Red Sea will not stop either. Nor will Israel's military actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon. So will there be the feared conflagration in the region? That will depend on the Pentagon and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Between these two powers are the oppressed peoples of Syria and Iraq. They are as innocent of escalation as the absolute majority of Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the situation of the civilian population in Gaza continues to deteriorate. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has announced that the Israeli offensive will reach Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. What the million of internally displaced people thought was a safe zone. And which, as German Foreign Minister Baerbock aptly put it, "cannot disappear into thin air". For Egypt will continue to keep its border closed.
The parallel negotiations for a cease-fire and the release of the hostages, in which Israel and Egypt as well as Qatar - the seat of the political leadership of Hamas - and the USA are involved, have also come to a standstill. According to media reports, there is no compromise in sight. The majority of Western politicians tirelessly remind us that only a two-state solution can permanently ensure the peaceful coexistence of Israel and Palestine. Rarely has a theory been so far from its practical implementation.
Good news of the week:
While hundreds of thousands of citizens continue to take to the streets against the right and for democracy, the party landscape is also arming itself against the shift to the right. The last general debate in the Bundestag was hardly about the actual item on the agenda, the 2024 budget, but about clearly distancing themselves from the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany) - in rare unity among the so-called established parties across the political spectrum.
These parties are also preparing for the right-wing to remain present in parliament - like the Rassemblement National in France, for example. Currently, the aim is to strengthen the protection of the Federal Constitutional Court. The governing traffic light coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals wants to protect the guardians of the constitution more strongly against possible attempts to remove their power.
Following the experiences of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism in the Third Reich, the authors of the Basic Law built various safeguards into the constitution. These include the "eternity clause", which states that the supporting pillars of the constitution (human dignity, democracy, constitutional state, federal state) may not be changed at all.
The Federal Constitutional Court was also created as a new supervisory body. If the powers of this supervisory body were to be curtailed, the fundamental guarantees could be undermined. The examples of Hungary, Poland and Israel show that right-wing populist governments in particular are trying to disempower the constitutional courts. In order to remove their political actions from any control.
In concrete terms, the core tasks of the Constitutional Court - such as deciding on constitutional complaints or mediating between state bodies - cannot be changed by a simple majority, but many organizational issues can. Since, for example, the election of judges is not regulated in the Basic Law (under the protection of the two-thirds majority), but "only" in a simple law, the legislature could also change key parameters in its favor with a simple majority.
No majority government in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany has ever dared to do this. Because all parties have always felt committed to democratic principles. Until now. It has already been shown several times in the USA that the appointment of judges can be misused for partisan political purposes. A blocking minority would also suffice for a complete blockade here. And the increasing likelihood of this is no longer a dystopia. In this respect, it is a good sign that the largest parliamentary group in the Bundestag - the current opposition conservatives - have also shown themselves to be open to strengthening the independence of the Constitutional Court.
Personal happy moment of the week:
I cleaned the windows. Which I rarely do. And I still prefer to do it myself, because nobody can please me anyway. It's not just the result that makes me happy, but also the positive reactions - from my wife and yes: even from neighbors. Let's see if I learn from it this time and do it more often in the future. After all, I like to be praised from time to time.
I couldn't care less...
...that Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early, mild spring on Groundhog Day. His accuracy is statistically just 40%. I can do the same when I flip a coin. My result: Phil is right. Let's see.
It's fine with me...
...that Taylor Swift's otherwise elusive socio-cultural impact could have a positive effect. According to a Newsweek poll, 30% of 18- to 35-year-olds in the US would follow a proposition from Swift in this November's presidential election - that's more than 13 million votes. No wonder the Republicans are already outdoing each other with conspiracy theories of her being a "Democratic secret weapon". After all, the pop star has already shown a tendency towards Joe Biden in the past, but above all against Donald Trump.
As I write this...
...I am already waiting for next weekend. A little anxious, as the two main sporting events will probably pass by me. Firstly, the top match in the German Bundesliga. Between "my" Munich-based FC Bayern, who strangely enough is only in second place at the moment, and Bayer 04 Leverkusen (Bayer who? Exactly!), who are unbeaten at the top so far this season. And it's only on pay TV, for which I would first have to find a suitably equipped sports bar nearby. Secondly, Superbowl LVIII in Las Vegas between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. This will be broadcast on German free TV, but in the middle of the night in our time zone. From Sunday to Monday. I'm just too old for that. And I console myself with the fact that, in my opinion, Usher lacks the format for the halftime show. Which I will of course still watch on YouTube.
Post Scriptum
It's the fourth anniversary of Brexit. At the end of the last decade, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland left the European Union. Former Prime Minister David Cameron had actually wanted to get backing for Europe through a referendum. The shot backfired and the rest is history: "taking back control" did not work out as the Brexiteers around Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage had hoped. Since then, the island kingdom has been in a political and economic crisis. Without gloating, it can be said that liberal cooperation works obviously better than protectionist isolation.
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