Merkel Ally: German Relationship With US Worse Than During Iraq War

Reason

Philipp Mißfelder, the foreign policy spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats in the Bundestag, has said that the German relationship with the United States is worse than during the most recent U.S.-led war in Iraq because of revelations related to American spying.

From Reuters:

(Reuters) - Relations between Germany and the United States are worse now than during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a decade ago, a leading ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday, in a sign of mounting anger in Berlin over American spying tactics.

Philipp Missfelder, foreign policy spokesman for Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) in parliament, said Berlin should bar U.S. access to a database of international financial transactions unless Washington promises to stop spying in Germany. The lawmaker is expected to be confirmed soon as the government coordinator for U.S. ties.

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Comments

[DesigNate]

Hey look, something Obama is better on than Bush.

That's quite an impressive feat Mr. President, managing to make a German go "You shouldn't do that!"

[Drake]

But, but, the Brandenburg Gate speech!

[db]

Does anyone remember that? What an empty gesture. Same as the Cairo speech.

[kinnath]

So happy to see the Peace Prize Winner has fulfilled liberal expectations of improving our relationships with all the other nations of the world.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Time for Angela to dust off her Enigma machine.

[Dweebston]

I'll admit, it has a better ring than "Der Schwarzenschnitzel"

[font_of_stupidity]

Wenn Sie Ihr amerikanisch-deutschen Beziehungen m?chten, k?nnen Sie sie zu halten.

[Res ipsa loquitur]

I blame Bush.

[jesse.in.mb]

I did what I could for US/German relations while I was there.

[UnCivilServant]

So that's why they hate us now.

Gee, thanks.

[Episiarch]

Wenn ist das Nunst?ck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!

[Kaptious Kristen]

Did you go to Munich? I have a very beary acquaintence there 🙂

[jesse.in.mb]

I was just in Berlin. I made a beary acquaintance there myself. A ginger-bear acquaintance no less.

[Hugh Akston]

Did you get an invite to Angie's Party Plane?

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Germany has began a crusade of dumb since Fukushima. Well, it began before that but they really kicked it into 6th gear after that.

They really believe they are going to power their entire country off of solar and wind. Good luck to them and any country connected to their grid. I foresee a lot of destabilization of the electric grid over there if they keep building "green" energy.

[Drake]

Come one, think of all those people who died of radiation poisoning!

[UnCivilServant]

Lets see, there's the Atom bomb targets, the bomb researchers who had mishaps, and the people poisoned when a government body told the reactor operators to shut down the safties for a test. Oh, and those deliberately poisoned by governments. I'm not seeing many who weren't hit with weaponized attacks or Soviet institutional idiocy.

[Drake]

Which is why I was being sarcastic.

[TheZeitgeist]

For all their eco-silliness, the Germans are pretty good at math. Which is why they're also throwing up a bunch of lignite coal plants, too.

[Sevo]

I was gonna say that not ALL Germans are dumb enough to buy the breeze and foggy-weather generators.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

They are good at math but the number they are using are not based in reality.

They are learning that and making up for it by building the dirtiest coal plants there are. Good for them, maybe some people will wake up that green tech is shit and that politicians shouldn't be running the show. Probably not but I can dream, can't I?

[Death Rock and Skull]

Being good at math and being good at being smart are not the same thing.

[GILMORE]

I've followed the German green energy debacle. it is peak-retard. as you point out = they've basically shut down their clean nuclear and been forced to go dirty coal to prevent the expensive Green from bankrupting their system.

last I recall there is some minor schizophrenia in the public over the whole thing. They hate their skyrocketing energy costs, but still demand MOAR GREEN ENERGY.

Will a wake-up come? I hope. if there's anything good coming out of it, its maybe that other countries see examples like Spain and Germany and decide that maybe creating an Energy 'command economy' is fucking stupid.

[JWatts]

"I've followed the German green energy debacle. it is peak-retard"

I don't know if they've hit peak-retard yet, but from all indications they are certainly setting new records.

The Germans really aren't doing that well with their Green energy, but despite that they are shooting themselves in the foot by replacing already paid for Nuclear power with the dirtiest version of coal power.

For example:

Wind power has a rated capacity, but the wind doesn't blow all the time (duh) so there is usually a comparative figure to take this into account. This is called the capacity factor. It's really just how much average power you can expect to get out of a wind farm.

For Germany, the country wide average is 17.5%.

The US's capacity factor, for comparison, is 31.8% and has been climbing.

So basically Germany sucks for wind power production.

But don't worry they have solar power. Oh wait, Germany's in Northern Europe with long cloudy winters.

Their solar capacity factor is (I kid you not) 9%! {facepalm}

Damn, apparently nobody saw that coming.

There is something about either the German culture or genetics that make them normally very rational, but prone to buying into an irrational ideology.

[Homple]

Actually, with advanced scrubbers and low NOx burners, the new lignite plants are little, if any, dirtier than the older hard coal units.

[UnCivilServant]

Which would be nice, if they weren't subbing for nuke plants.

[Death Rock and Skull]

These are nuke plants that they already built at some point, right?

[GILMORE]

They shut down like 8 plants, and plan to shut down the remaining 8-9 in the next few years.

They've basically taken 25% of their generation capacity offline. Energy costs per household have risen by 40%+ in just the last 4 years. 2/3 of the prices paid are subsidies for green sources.

Despite this, their carbon emissions have risen ever since implementing the program.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin.....onomy.html

Think "Obamacare", but Energy.

[Darion X]

Hello Gilmore,

I have logged on especially because of what you wrote here.

One question and no, it is not been meant as an Insult but as a real question.

Can you read and do you use that skill to understand the stuff you read?

a.) To use *The Telegraph* to understand anything on Germany and the so-named *Energiewende* is funny at best.
b.) If you use it, read it correctly.

First of all there is no *subsidy* on any green energy sources in Germany included into pricing on electricity.

Second The Telegraph is nowhere stating that the energy prices have rising 40+ % in Germany.

Third our carbon emissions haven't risen *ever* since implementing the program, at least if you are speaking of the *Energiewende*. Or could you provide some data showing that.

Fourth - where did you got the information that we have taken 25 % of our generation capacity offline?

Seem we must have had about 40 % over capacity before we started which ever you were talking about as we still have some over-capacity.

BTW, if that is not clear so far. I am a German and find your statement only *silly*.

Now if you want to speak on something you at least should know the basics. But than the Americans have that *free speech* which means they can say every crap they want.

That in itself is a good thing, only to many aren't checking what they look at. Taking any crap for truth.

Now as a German I know where that Ends.

[db]

Lignit units are also the largest, because the low heating value and massive ash.content require.much larger boilers than bituminous coal furnqces. I used to work at a plant with 900+ MW boilers. When I visited a lignite fired plant in North Dakota making about 600 MW, I was impressed that their boilers were even larger than the ones I had worked with.

[db]

The plant I visited in ND had the hugest electrostatic precipitators I have ever seen. The plant generated monstrous quantities of ash to.be landfilled. Interestingly enough, the ash is a very light color, light and fluffy, almost like wood ash. Which is to be expected, I guess, given the low rank of lignite.

[Sidd Finch]

Yea, that stuff is like the worst batch of PRB ever. It's hilarious that Germany is resorting to burning that shit.

[db]

To quote a character in an L. Ron Hubbard book,
"A thermonuclear fire culture? How strange!"

[Darion X]

And where did you got that Information from?

Which coal plants are you talking of we build in Germany so quickly out of the hat.

Any source for your Statement and BTW have you looked up that your sources is providing you with some real data?

[Episiarch]

The Obama administration: repairing the Bush damage to our foreign relations since 2001.

[WTF]

It's Smart Diplomacy. You just don't understand because you're not Smart. Like the people who voted for Obama.

[wareagle]

it's just because Merkel is racist. Couldn't possibly be any other reason.

[font_of_stupidity]

You know which other German was racist?

[WTF]

Wagner?

[WTF]

Queen Victoria?

[Hugh Akston]

Nietzsche's sister?

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Michael Schumacher?

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Ohhhhh. You wrote racist. My bad.

[GILMORE]

lol

[Kaptious Kristen]

Me?

[UnCivilServant]

Wait, you're german?

[Kaptious Kristen]

Ethnically/genetically I'm pretty damn Krauty.

[JWatts]

So it should really be Krauty Kaptious Kristen ie KKK. So, yes we have a winner for another German racist. 😉

[Death Rock and Skull]

You know when else German relations with the U.S. were worse than during the Iraq war?

[Voros McCracken]

When Nena did the English version of 99 Luft Balloons?

[Hugh Akston]

After Hasselhoff did Baywatch Nights?

[WTF]

No way, the Germans love the Hoff.

[jesse.in.mb]

I walked into the ginger bear's apartment and he had a paper David Hasselhoff mask on his wall. I started laughing and he explained that it was a gift from some French women in Berlin for a hen party who had worn the masks for the related events.

[Eduard van Haalen]

I knew it was too much to expect, hoping to be the first to post that joke.

[Death Rock and Skull]

It is a bottom feeder's joke. I'm a bottom feeder. So, welcome to the club, I guess. Regulars get one free rail per night.

[Raston Bot]

Would that be the FATCA database of financial transactions?

[font_of_stupidity]

OBAMA: Oooh, the Germans are mad at me. I'm so scared! Oooh, the Germans! [hiding behind BIDEN] Uh oh, the Germans are going to get me!

[UnCivilServant]

"Guten Morgen, Mister President. Ve are here to demonstrate our vays of making you stop talking." *Takes teleprompter*

[Dweebston]

Philipp Mi?felder

Brussels hasn't gotten around to stamping out the esset, I take it.

[Homple]

Actually, Rechtschreibreform some years back tried limiting the use of "?", but the Germans are reluctant to let go of it.

[GILMORE]

A consensus seems to be emerging =

"What do you think of Obama, world?"

Israel = "Putz"
Germany = "Dumpfbacke"
Russia = "Pizdoon"
China = "Mo-lan"
Egyptians = "Ebn el metnakah"
Iranians = "we find him engaging and a pleasure to deal with"

[Bardas Phocas]

German Tea Baggers
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02......html?_r=0

Also, if it wasn't for Murica, they'd be talkin german now.

[GILMORE]

""For years, I was a green-tea snob""

I stopped there.

The disconnect between the NYT and the rest of America is so vast as to be classified as communications from an alternate dimension. what we find so appalling is that NO ONE at the paper read this *opening sentence* and said, "Hey, maybe you sound a little like, well... a total asshole there?" No: they went, "OMG!?@ Me too!"